diff --git a/fortune.txt b/fortune.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9362ab9 --- /dev/null +++ b/fortune.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5733 @@ +!07/11 PDP a ni deppart m'I !pleH +% +101 USES FOR A DEAD MICROPROCESSOR + (1) Scarecrow for centipedes + (2) Dead cat brush + (3) Hair barrettes + (4) Cleats + (5) Self-piercing earrings + (6) Fungus trellis + (7) False eyelashes + (8) Prosthetic dog claws + . + . + . + (99) Window garden harrow (pulled behind Tonka tractors) + (100) Killer velcro + (101) Currency +% +1: No code table for op: ++post +% +4.2 BSD UNIX #57: Sun Jun 1 23:02:07 EDT 1986 + +You swing at the Sun. You miss. The Sun swings. He hits you with a +575MB disk! You read the 575MB disk. It is written in an alien +tongue and cannot be read by your tired Sun-2 eyes. You throw the +575MB disk at the Sun. You hit! The Sun must repair your eyes. The +Sun reads a scroll. He hits your 130MB disk! He has defeated the +130MB disk! The Sun reads a scroll. He hits your Ethernet board! He +has defeated your Ethernet board! You read a scroll of "postpone until +Monday at 9 AM". Everything goes dark... + -- /etc/motd, cbosgd +% +A biologist, a statistician, a mathematician and a computer scientist are on +a photo-safari in Africa. As they're driving along the savannah in their +jeep, they stop and scout the horizon with their binoculars. + +The biologist: "Look! A herd of zebras! And there's a white zebra! + Fantastic! We'll be famous!" +The statistician: "Hey, calm down, it's not significant. We only know + there's one white zebra." +The mathematician: "Actually, we only know there exists a zebra, which is + white on one side." +The computer scientist : "Oh, no! A special case!" +% +... A booming voice says, "Wrong, cretin!", and you notice that you +have turned into a pile of dust. +% +A bug in the code is worth two in the documentation. +% +A bug in the hand is better than one as yet undetected. +% +A certain monk had a habit of pestering the Grand Tortue (the only one who +had ever reached the Enlightenment 'Yond Enlightenment), by asking whether +various objects had Buddha-nature or not. To such a question Tortue +invariably sat silent. The monk had already asked about a bean, a lake, +and a moonlit night. One day he brought to Tortue a piece of string, and +asked the same question. In reply, the Grand Tortue grasped the loop +between his feet and, with a few simple manipulations, created a complex +string which he proferred wordlessly to the monk. At that moment, the monk +was enlightened. + +From then on, the monk did not bother Tortue. Instead, he made string after +string by Tortue's method; and he passed the method on to his own disciples, +who passed it on to theirs. +% +A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a +simple system that works. +% +[A computer is] like an Old Testament god, with a lot of rules and no mercy. + -- Joseph Campbell +% +A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any other invention, +with the possible exceptions of handguns and Tequilla. + -- Mitch Ratcliffe +% +A computer salesman visits a company president for the purpose of selling +the president one of the latest talking computers. +Salesman: "This machine knows everything. I can ask it any question + and it'll give the correct answer. Computer, what is the + speed of light?" +Computer: 186,282 miles per second. +Salesman: "Who was the first president of the United States?" +Computer: George Washington. +President: "I'm still not convinced. Let me ask a question. + Where is my father?" +Computer: Your father is fishing in Georgia. +President: "Hah!! The computer is wrong. My father died over twenty + years ago!" +Computer: Your mother's husband died 22 years ago. Your father just + landed a twelve pound bass. +% +A computer scientist is someone who fixes things that aren't broken. +% +A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake +without ketchup and mustard. +% +A CONS is an object which cares. + -- Bernie Greenberg. +% +A debugged program is one for which you have not yet found the conditions +that make it fail. + -- Jerry Ogdin +% + A disciple of another sect once came to Drescher as he was eating +his morning meal. "I would like to give you this personality test", said +the outsider, "because I want you to be happy." + Drescher took the paper that was offered him and put it into the +toaster -- "I wish the toaster to be happy too". +% + A doctor, an architect, and a computer scientist were arguing about +whose profession was the oldest. In the course of their arguments, they +got all the way back to the Garden of Eden, whereupon the doctor said, "The +medical profession is clearly the oldest, because Eve was made from Adam's +rib, as the story goes, and that was a simply incredible surgical feat." + The architect did not agree. He said, "But if you look at the Garden +itself, in the beginning there was chaos and void, and out of that the Garden +and the world were created. So God must have been an architect." + The computer scientist, who'd listened carefully to all of this, then +commented, "Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?" +% +A famous Lisp Hacker noticed an Undergraduate sitting in front of a Xerox +1108, trying to edit a complex Klone network via a browser. Wanting to +help, the Hacker clicked one of the nodes in the network with the mouse, +and asked "what do you see?" Very earnestly, the Undergraduate replied "I +see a cursor." The Hacker then quickly pressed the boot toggle at the back +of the keyboard, while simultaneously hitting the Undergraduate over the head +with a thick Interlisp Manual. The Undergraduate was then Enlightened. +% +A formal parsing algorithm should not always be used. + -- D. Gries +% +A Fortran compiler is the hobgoblin of little minis. +% +A hacker does for love what others would not do for money. +% +A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is +not worth knowing. +% +A language that doesn't have everything is actually easier to program +in than some that do. + -- Dennis M. Ritchie +% +A large number of installed systems work by fiat. That is, they work +by being declared to work. + -- Anatol Holt +% +A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing. + -- Alan Perlis +% +A list is only as strong as its weakest link. + -- Don Knuth +% +A little retrospection shows that although many fine, useful software systems +have been designed by committees and built as part of multipart projects, +those software systems that have excited passionate fans are those that are +the products of one or a few designing minds, great designers. Consider Unix, +APL, Pascal, Modula, the Smalltalk interface, even Fortran; and contrast them +with Cobol, PL/I, Algol, MVS/370, and MS-DOS. + -- Fred Brooks +% + A man from AI walked across the mountains to SAIL to see the Master, +Knuth. When he arrived, the Master was nowhere to be found. "Where is the +wise one named Knuth?" he asked a passing student. + "Ah," said the student, "you have not heard. He has gone on a +pilgrimage across the mountains to the temple of AI to seek out new +disciples." + Hearing this, the man was Enlightened. +% + A manager asked a programmer how long it would take him to finish the +program on which he was working. "I will be finished tomorrow," the +programmer promptly replied. + "I think you are being unrealistic," said the manager. "Truthfully, +how long will it take?" + The programmer thought for a moment. "I have some features that I wish +to add. This will take at least two weeks," he finally said. + "Even that is too much to expect," insisted the manager, "I will be +satisfied if you simply tell me when the program is complete." + The programmer agreed to this. + Several years later, the manager retired. On the way to his +retirement lunch, he discovered the programmer asleep at his terminal. +He had been programming all night. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A manager was about to be fired, but a programmer who worked for him +invented a new program that became popular and sold well. As a result, the +manager retained his job. + The manager tried to give the programmer a bonus, but the programmer +refused it, saying, "I wrote the program because I though it was an +interesting concept, and thus I expect no reward." + The manager, upon hearing this, remarked, "This programmer, though he +holds a position of small esteem, understands well the proper duty of an +employee. Lets promote him to the exalted position of management consultant!" + But when told this, the programmer once more refused, saying, "I exist +so that I can program. If I were promoted, I would do nothing but waste +everyone's time. Can I go now? I have a program that I'm working on." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A manager went to his programmers and told them: "As regards to your +work hours: you are going to have to come in at nine in the morning and leave +at five in the afternoon." At this, all of them became angry and several +resigned on the spot. + So the manager said: "All right, in that case you may set your own +working hours, as long as you finish your projects on schedule." The +programmers, now satisfied, began to come in a noon and work to the wee +hours of the morning. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A manager went to the master programmer and showed him the requirements +document for a new application. The manager asked the master: "How long will +it take to design this system if I assign five programmers to it?" + "It will take one year," said the master promptly. + "But we need this system immediately or even sooner! How long will it +take it I assign ten programmers to it?" + The master programmer frowned. "In that case, it will take two years." + "And what if I assign a hundred programmers to it?" + The master programmer shrugged. "Then the design will never be +completed," he said. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A master programmer passed a novice programmer one day. The master +noted the novice's preoccupation with a hand-held computer game. "Excuse me", +he said, "may I examine it?" + The novice bolted to attention and handed the device to the master. +"I see that the device claims to have three levels of play: Easy, Medium, +and Hard", said the master. "Yet every such device has another level of play, +where the device seeks not to conquer the human, nor to be conquered by the +human." + "Pray, great master," implored the novice, "how does one find this +mysterious setting?" + The master dropped the device to the ground and crushed it under foot. +And suddenly the novice was enlightened. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A master was explaining the nature of Tao to one of his novices. +"The Tao is embodied in all software -- regardless of how insignificant," +said the master. + "Is Tao in a hand-held calculator?" asked the novice. + "It is," came the reply. + "Is the Tao in a video game?" continued the novice. + "It is even in a video game," said the master. + "And is the Tao in the DOS for a personal computer?" + The master coughed and shifted his position slightly. "The lesson +is over for today," he said. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +A modem is a baudy house. +% +A nasty looking dwarf throws a knife at you. +% + *** A NEW KIND OF PROGRAMMING *** + +Do you want the instant respect that comes from being able to use technical +terms that nobody understands? Do you want to strike fear and loathing into +the hearts of DP managers everywhere? If so, then let the Famous Programmers' +School lead you on... into the world of professional computer programming. +They say a good programmer can write 20 lines of effective program per day. +With our unique training course, we'll show you how to write 20 lines of code +and lots more besides. Our training course covers every programming language +in existence, and some that aren't. You'll learn why the on/off switch for a +computer is so important, what the words *fatal error* mean, and who and what +you should blame when you make a mistake. + + Yes, I want the brochure describing this incredible offer. + I enclose $1000 is small unmarked bills to cover the cost of + postage and handling. (No live poultry, please.) + +*** Our Slogan: Top down programming for the masses. *** +% + A novice asked the Master: "Here is a programmer that never designs, +documents, or tests his programs. Yet all who know him consider him one of +the best programmers in the world. Why is this?" + The Master replies: "That programmer has mastered the Tao. He has +gone beyond the need for design; he does not become angry when the system +crashes, but accepts the universe without concern. He has gone beyond the +need for documentation; he no longer cares if anyone else sees his code. He +has gone beyond the need for testing; each of his programs are perfect within +themselves, serene and elegant, their purpose self-evident. Truly, he has +entered the mystery of the Tao." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A novice asked the master: "I have a program that sometimes runs and +sometimes aborts. I have followed the rules of programming, yet I am totally +baffled. What is the reason for this?" + The master replied: "You are confused because you do not understand +the Tao. Only a fool expects rational behavior from his fellow humans. Why +do you expect it from a machine that humans have constructed? Computers +simulate determinism; only the Tao is perfect. + The rules of programming are transitory; only the Tao is eternal. +Therefore you must contemplate the Tao before you receive enlightenment." + "But how will I know when I have received enlightenment?" asked the +novice. + "Your program will then run correctly," replied the master. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A novice asked the master: "I perceive that one computer company is +much larger than all others. It towers above its competition like a giant +among dwarfs. Any one of its divisions could comprise an entire business. +Why is this so?" + The master replied, "Why do you ask such foolish questions? That +company is large because it is so large. If it only made hardware, nobody +would buy it. If it only maintained systems, people would treat it like a +servant. But because it combines all of these things, people think it one +of the gods! By not seeking to strive, it conquers without effort." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A novice asked the master: "In the east there is a great tree-structure +that men call 'Corporate Headquarters'. It is bloated out of shape with +vice-presidents and accountants. It issues a multitude of memos, each saying +'Go, Hence!' or 'Go, Hither!' and nobody knows what is meant. Every year new +names are put onto the branches, but all to no avail. How can such an +unnatural entity exist?" + The master replies: "You perceive this immense structure and are +disturbed that it has no rational purpose. Can you not take amusement from +its endless gyrations? Do you not enjoy the untroubled ease of programming +beneath its sheltering branches? Why are you bothered by its uselessness?" + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A novice of the temple once approached the Chief Priest with a +question. + "Master, does Emacs have the Buddha nature?" the novice asked. + The Chief Priest had been in the temple for many years and could be +relied upon to know these things. He thought for several minutes before +replying. + "I don't see why not. It's got bloody well everything else." + With that, the Chief Priest went to lunch. The novice suddenly +achieved enlightenment, several years later. + +Commentary: + +His Master is kind, +Answering his FAQ quickly, +With thought and sarcasm. +% + A novice programmer was once assigned to code a simple financial +package. + The novice worked furiously for many days, but when his master +reviewed his program, he discovered that it contained a screen editor, a set +of generalized graphics routines, and artificial intelligence interface, +but not the slightest mention of anything financial. + When the master asked about this, the novice became indignant. +"Don't be so impatient," he said, "I'll put the financial stuff in +eventually." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A novice was trying to fix a broken lisp machine by turning the +power off and on. Knight, seeing what the student was doing spoke sternly, +"You cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding +of what is going wrong." Knight turned the machine off and on. The +machine worked. +% +A person who is more than casually interested in computers should be well +schooled in machine language, since it is a fundamental part of a computer. + -- Donald Knuth +% + A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a +strings of pearls. The spirit and intent of the program should be retained +throughout. There should be neither too little nor too much, neither needless +loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming +rigidity. + A program should follow the 'Law of Least Astonishment'. What is this +law? It is simply that the program should always respond to the user in the +way that astonishes him least. + A program, no matter how complex, should act as a single unit. The +program should be directed by the logic within rather than by outward +appearances. + If the program fails in these requirements, it will be in a state of +disorder and confusion. The only way to correct this is to rewrite the +program. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + A programmer from a very large computer company went to a software +conference and then returned to report to his manager, saying: "What sort +of programmers work for other companies? They behaved badly and were +unconcerned with appearances. Their hair was long and unkempt and their +clothes were wrinkled and old. They crashed out hospitality suites and they +made rude noises during my presentation." + The manager said: "I should have never sent you to the conference. +Those programmers live beyond the physical world. They consider life absurd, +an accidental coincidence. They come and go without knowing limitations. +Without a care, they live only for their programs. Why should they bother +with social conventions?" + "They are alive within the Tao." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +A programmer is a person who passes as an exacting expert on the basis of +being able to turn out, after innumerable punching, an infinite series of +incomprehensible answers calculated with micrometric precisions from vague +assumptions based on debatable figures taken from inconclusive documents +and carried out on instruments of problematical accuracy by persons of +dubious reliability and questionable mentality for the avowed purpose of +annoying and confounding a hopelessly defenseless department that was +unfortunate enough to ask for the information in the first place. + -- IEEE Grid newsmagazine +% +A programming language is low level when its programs require attention +to the irrelevant. +% +A recent study has found that concentrating on difficult off-screen +objects, such as the faces of loved ones, causes eye strain in computer +scientists. Researchers into the phenomenon cite the added concentration +needed to "make sense" of such unnatural three dimensional objects. +% +A rolling disk gathers no MOS. +% + A sheet of paper crossed my desk the other day and as I read it, +realization of a basic truth came over me. So simple! So obvious we couldn't +see it. John Knivlen, Chairman of Polamar Repeater Club, an amateur radio +group, had discovered how IC circuits work. He says that smoke is the thing +that makes ICs work because every time you let the smoke out of an IC circuit, +it stops working. He claims to have verified this with thorough testing. + I was flabbergasted! Of course! Smoke makes all things electrical +work. Remember the last time smoke escaped from your Lucas voltage regulator +Didn't it quit working? I sat and smiled like an idiot as more of the truth +dawned. It's the wiring harness that carries the smoke from one device to +another in your Mini, MG or Jag. And when the harness springs a leak, it lets +the smoke out of everything at once, and then nothing works. The starter +motor requires large quantities of smoke to operate properly, and that's why +the wire going to it is so large. + Feeling very smug, I continued to expand my hypothesis. Why are Lucas +electronics more likely to leak than say Bosch? Hmmm... Aha!!! Lucas is +British, and all things British leak! British convertible tops leak water, +British engines leak oil, British displacer units leak hydrostatic fluid, and +I might add Brititsh tires leak air, and the British defense unit leaks +secrets... so naturally British electronics leak smoke. + -- Jack Banton, PCC Automotive Electrical School + + [Ummm ... IC circuits? Integrated circuit circuits?] +% +A student, in hopes of understanding the Lambda-nature, came to Greenblatt. +As they spoke a Multics system hacker walked by. "Is it true", asked the +student, "that PL-1 has many of the same data types as Lisp?" Almost before +the student had finished his question, Greenblatt shouted, "FOO!", and hit +the student with a stick. +% +A successful [software] tool is one that was used to do something +undreamed of by its author. + -- S. C. Johnson +% +A well-used door needs no oil on its hinges. +A swift-flowing steam does not grow stagnant. +Neither sound nor thoughts can travel through a vacuum. +Software rots if not used. + +These are great mysteries. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God. +% +About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt +ax. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead. + -- Edsger Dijkstra +% +Adding features does not necessarily increase functionality -- it just +makes the manuals thicker. +% +Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. + -- F. Brooks, "The Mythical Man-Month" +% +Whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty by +close application thereto, it is worse execute by two persons and +scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein. + -- George Washington, 1732-1799 +% + After sifting through the overwritten remaining blocks of Luke's home +directory, Luke and PDP-1 sped away from /u/lars, across the surface of the +Winchester riding Luke's flying read/write head. PDP-1 had Luke stop at the +edge of the cylinder overlooking /usr/spool/uucp. + "Unix-to-Unix Copy Program;" said PDP-1. "You will never find a more +wretched hive of bugs and flamers. We must be cautious." + -- DECWARS +% +Alan Turing thought about criteria to settle the question of whether +machines can think, a question of which we now know that it is about +as relevant as the question of whether submarines can swim. + -- Dijkstra +% +Algol-60 surely must be regarded as the most important programming language +yet developed. + -- T. Cheatham +% +All constants are variables. +% +=== ALL CSH USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +Set the variable $LOSERS to all the people that you think are losers. This +will cause all said losers to have the variable $PEOPLE-WHO-THINK-I-AM-A-LOSER +updated in their .login file. Should you attempt to execute a job on a +machine with poor response time and a machine on your local net is currently +populated by losers, that machine will be freed up for your job through a +cold boot process. +% +All parts should go together without forcing. You must remember that the +parts you are reassembling were disassembled by you. Therefore, if you can't +get them together again, there must be a reason. By all means, do not use a +hammer. + -- IBM maintenance manual, 1925 +% +All programmers are optimists. Perhaps this modern sorcery especially +attracts those who believe in happy endings and fairy godmothers. Perhaps the +hundreds of nitty frustrations drive away all but those who habitually focus +on the end goal. Perhaps it is merely that computers are young, programmers +are younger, and the young are always optimists. But however the selection +process works, the result is indisputable: "This time it will surely run," or +"I just found the last bug." + -- Frederick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month" +% +All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors. +% +"... all the good computer designs are bootlegged; the formally planned +products, if they are built at all, are dogs!" + -- David E. Lundstrom, "A Few Good Men From Univac", + MIT Press, 1987 +% +All the simple programs have been written. +% +=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +A new system, the CIRCULATORY system, has been added. + +The long-experimental CIRCULATORY system has been released to users. The +Lisp Machine uses Type B fluid, the L machine uses Type A fluid. When the +switch to Common Lisp occurs both machines will, of course, be Type O. +Please check fluid level by using the DIP stick which is located in the +back of VMI monitors. Unchecked low fluid levels can cause poor paging +performance. +% +=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +Bug reports now amount to an average of 12,853 per day. Unfortunately, +this is only a small fraction [ < 1% ] of the mail volume we receive. In +order that we may more expeditiously deal with these valuable messages, +please communicate them by one of the following paths: + + ARPA: WastebasketSLMHQ.ARPA + UUCP: [berkeley, seismo, harpo]!fubar!thekid!slmhq!wastebasket + Non-network sites: Federal Express to: + Wastebasket + Room NE43-926 + Copernicus, The Moon, 12345-6789 + For that personal contact feeling call 1-415-642-4948; our trained + operators are on call 24 hours a day. VISA/MC accepted.* + +* Our very rich lawyers have assured us that we are not + responsible for any errors or advice given over the phone. +% +=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +CAR and CDR now return extra values. + +The function CAR now returns two values. Since it has to go to the trouble +to figure out if the object is carcdr-able anyway, we figured you might as +well get both halves at once. For example, the following code shows how to +destructure a cons (SOME-CONS) into its two slots (THE-CAR and THE-CDR): + + (MULTIPLE-VALUE-BIND (THE-CAR THE-CDR) (CAR SOME-CONS) ...) + +For symmetry with CAR, CDR returns a second value which is the CAR of the +object. In a related change, the functions MAKE-ARRAY and CONS have been +fixed so they don't allocate any storage except on the stack. This should +hopefully help people who don't like using the garbage collector because +it cold boots the machine so often. +% +=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +Compiler optimizations have been made to macro expand LET into a WITHOUT- +INTERRUPTS special form so that it can PUSH things into a stack in the +LET-OPTIMIZATION area, SETQ the variables and then POP them back when it's +done. Don't worry about this unless you use multiprocessing. +Note that LET *could* have been defined by: + + (LET ((LET '`(LET ((LET ',LET)) + ,LET))) + `(LET ((LET ',LET)) + ,LET)) + +This is believed to speed up execution by as much as a factor of 1.01 or +3.50 depending on whether you believe our friendly marketing representatives. +This code was written by a new programmer here (we snatched him away from +Itty Bitti Machines where he was writing COUGHBOL code) so to give him +confidence we trusted his vows of "it works pretty well" and installed it. +% +=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +JCL support as alternative to system menu. + +In our continuing effort to support languages other than LISP on the CADDR, +we have developed an OS/360-compatible JCL. This can be used as an +alternative to the standard system menu. Type System J to get to a JCL +interactive read-execute-diagnose loop window. [Note that for 360 +compatibility, all input lines are truncated to 80 characters.] This +window also maintains a mouse-sensitive display of critical job parameters +such as dataset allocation, core allocation, channels, etc. When a JCL +syntax error is detected or your job ABENDs, the window-oriented JCL +debugger is entered. The JCL debugger displays appropriate OS/360 error +messages (such as IEC703, "disk error") and allows you to dequeue your job. +% +=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +The garbage collector now works. In addition a new, experimental garbage +collection algorithm has been installed. With SI:%DSK-GC-QLX-BITS set to 17, +(NOT the default) the old garbage collection algorithm remains in force; when +virtual storage is filled, the machine cold boots itself. With SI:%DSK-GC- +QLX-BITS set to 23, the new garbage collector is enabled. Unlike most garbage +collectors, the new gc starts its mark phase from the mind of the user, rather +than from the obarray. This allows the garbage collection of significantly +more Qs. As the garbage collector runs, it may ask you something like "Do you +remember what SI:RDTBL-TRANS does?", and if you can't give a reasonable answer +in thirty seconds, the symbol becomes a candidate for GCing. The variable +SI:%GC-QLX-LUSER-TM governs how long the GC waits before timing out the user. +% +=== ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ======================== + +There has been some confusion concerning MAPCAR. + (DEFUN MAPCAR (&FUNCTIONAL FCN &EVAL &REST LISTS) + (PROG (V P LP) + (SETQ P (LOCF V)) + L (SETQ LP LISTS) + (%START-FUNCTION-CALL FCN T (LENGTH LISTS) NIL) + L1 (OR LP (GO L2)) + (AND (NULL (CAR LP)) (RETURN V)) + (%PUSH (CAAR LP)) + (RPLACA LP (CDAR LP)) + (SETQ LP (CDR LP)) + (GO L1) + L2 (%FINISH-FUNCTION-CALL FCN T (LENGTH LISTS) NIL) + (SETQ LP (%POP)) + (RPLACD P (SETQ P (NCONS LP))) + (GO L))) +We hope this clears up the many questions we've had about it. +% +All your files have been destroyed (sorry). Paul. +% +Almost anything derogatory you could say about today's software design +would be accurate. + -- K. E. Iverson +% +Although it is still a truism in industry that "no one was ever fired for +buying IBM," Bill O'Neil, the chief technology officer at Drexel Burnham +Lambert, says he knows for a fact that someone has been fired for just that +reason. He knows it because he fired the guy. + "He made a bad decision, and what it came down to was, 'Well, I +bought it because I figured it was safe to buy IBM,'" Mr. O'Neil says. +"I said, 'No. Wrong. Game over. Next contestant, please.'" + -- The Wall Street Journal, December 6, 1989 +% +AmigaDOS Beer: The company has gone out of business, but their recipe has +been picked up by some weird German company, so now this beer will be an +import. This beer never really sold very well because the original +manufacturer didn't understand marketing. Like Unix Beer, AmigaDOS Beer +fans are an extremely loyal and loud group. It originally came in a +16-oz. can, but now comes in 32-oz. cans too. When this can was +originally introduced, it appeared flashy and colorful, but the design +hasn't changed much over the years, so it appears dated now. Critics of +this beer claim that it is only meant for watching TV anyway. +% +An Ada exception is when a routine gets in trouble and says +'Beam me up, Scotty'. +% +An adequate bootstrap is a contradiction in terms. +% +An algorithm must be seen to be believed. + -- D. E. Knuth +% +... an anecdote from IBM's Yorktown Heights Research Center. When a +programmer used his new computer terminal, all was fine when he was sitting +down, but he couldn't log in to the system when he was standing up. That +behavior was 100 percent repeatable: he could always log in when sitting and +never when standing. + +Most of us just sit back and marvel at such a story; how could that terminal +know whether the poor guy was sitting or standing? Good debuggers, though, +know that there has to be a reason. Electrical theories are the easiest to +hypothesize: was there a loose wire under the carpet, or problems with static +electricity? But electrical problems are rarely consistently reproducible. +An alert IBMer finally noticed that the problem was in the terminal's +keyboard: the tops of two keys were switched. When the programmer was seated +he was a touch typist and the problem went unnoticed, but when he stood he was +led astray by hunting and pecking. + -- "Programming Pearls" column, by Jon Bentley in CACM February 1985 +% +An elephant is a mouse with an operating system. +% +An engineer is someone who does list processing in FORTRAN. +% +An interpretation I satisfies a sentence in the table language if and only +if each entry in the table designates the value of the function designated by +the function constant in the upper-left corner applied to the objects +designated by the corresponding row and column labels. + -- Genesereth & Nilsson, "Logical foundations of Artificial + Intelligence" +% +And it should be the law: If you use the word `paradigm' without knowing +what the dictionary says it means, you go to jail. No exceptions. + -- David Jones +% +And on the seventh day, He exited from append mode. +% +Another megabytes the dust. +% +Any given program will expand to fill available memory. +% +Any given program, when running, is obsolete. +% +Any program which runs right is obsolete. +% +Any programming language is at its best before it is implemented and used. +% +... Any resemblance between the above views and those of my employer, +my terminal, or the view out my window are purely coincidental. Any +resemblance between the above and my own views is non-deterministic. The +question of the existence of views in the absence of anyone to hold them +is left as an exercise for the reader. The question of the existence of +the reader is left as an exercise for the second god coefficient. (A +discussion of non-orthogonal, non-integral polytheism is beyond the scope +of this article.) +% +Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature. + -- Rich Kulawiec +% +Anyone who has attended a USENIX conference in a fancy hotel can tell you +that a sentence like "You're one of those computer people, aren't you?" +is roughly equivalent to "Look, another amazingly mobile form of slime +mold!" in the mouth of a hotel cocktail waitress. + -- Elizabeth Zwicky +% +APL hackers do it in the quad. +% +APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the +future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation +of coding bums. + -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 +% +APL is a natural extension of assembler language programming; +...and is best for educational purposes. + -- A. Perlis +% +APL is a write-only language. I can write programs in APL, but I can't +read any of them. + -- Roy Keir +% +Are we running light with overbyte? +% +Around computers it is difficult to find the correct unit of time to +measure progress. Some cathedrals took a century to complete. Can you +imagine the grandeur and scope of a program that would take as long? + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% +As a computer, I find your faith in technology amusing. +% +As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error. + -- Weisert +% +As in certain cults it is possible to kill a process if you know its true +name. + -- Ken Thompson and Dennis M. Ritchie +% +As in Protestant Europe, by contrast, where sects divided endlessly into +smaller competing sects and no church dominated any other, all is different +in the fragmented world of IBM. That realm is now a chaos of conflicting +norms and standards that not even IBM can hope to control. You can buy a +computer that works like an IBM machine but contains nothing made or sold by +IBM itself. Renegades from IBM constantly set up rival firms and establish +standards of their own. When IBM recently abandoned some of its original +standards and decreed new ones, many of its rivals declared a puritan +allegiance to IBM's original faith, and denounced the company as a divisive +innovator. Still, the IBM world is united by its distrust of icons and +imagery. IBM's screens are designed for language, not pictures. Graven +images may be tolerated by the luxurious cults, but the true IBM faith relies +on the austerity of the word. + -- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988 +% +As long as there are ill-defined goals, bizarre bugs, and unrealistic +schedules, there will be Real Programmers willing to jump in and Solve +The Problem, saving the documentation for later. +% +As of next Thursday, UNIX will be flushed in favor of TOPS-10. +Please update your programs. +% +As of next Tuesday, C will be flushed in favor of COBOL. +Please update your programs. +% +As of next week, passwords will be entered in Morse code. +% +As part of an ongoing effort to keep you, the Fortune reader, abreast of +the valuable information that daily crosses the USENET, Fortune presents: + +News articles that answer *your* questions, #1: + + Newsgroups: comp.sources.d + Subject: how do I run C code received from sources + Keywords: C sources + Distribution: na + + I do not know how to run the C programs that are posted in the + sources newsgroup. I save the files, edit them to remove the + headers, and change the mode so that they are executable, but I + cannot get them to run. (I have never written a C program before.) + + Must they be compiled? With what compiler? How do I do this? If + I compile them, is an object code file generated or must I generate + it explicitly with the > character? Is there something else that + must be done? +% +As part of the conversion, computer specialists rewrote 1,500 programs; +a process that traditionally requires some debugging. + -- USA Today, referring to the Internal Revenue Service + conversion to a new computer system. +% +As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn't +as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had to be +discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized that a large +part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in +my own programs. + -- Maurice Wilkes, designer of EDSAC, on programming, 1949 +% +As the system comes up, the component builders will from time to time appear, +bearing hot new versions of their pieces -- faster, smaller, more complete, +or putatively less buggy. The replacement of a working component by a new +version requires the same systematic testing procedure that adding a new +component does, although it should require less time, for more complete and +efficient test cases will usually be available. + -- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" +% +As the trials of life continue to take their toll, remember that there +is always a future in Computer Maintenance. + -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" +% +As Will Rogers would have said, "There is no such things as a free variable." +% +ASCII a stupid question, you get an EBCDIC answer. +% +ASHes to ASHes, DOS to DOS. +% +Ask not for whom the  tolls. +% +Assembly language experience is [important] for the maturity +and understanding of how computers work that it provides. + -- D. Gries +% +Asynchronous inputs are at the root of our race problems. + -- D. Winker and F. Prosser +% +At about 2500 A.D., humankind discovers a computer problem that *must* be +solved. The only difficulty is that the problem is NP complete and will +take thousands of years even with the latest optical biologic technology +available. The best computer scientists sit down to think up some solution. +In great dismay, one of the C.S. people tells her husband about it. There +is only one solution, he says. Remember physics 103, Modern Physics, general +relativity and all. She replies, "What does that have to do with solving +a computer problem?" + "Remember the twin paradox?" + After a few minutes, she says, "I could put the computer on a very +fast machine and the computer would have just a few minutes to calculate but +that is the exact opposite of what we want... Of course! Leave the +computer here, and accelerate the earth!" + The problem was so important that they did exactly that. When +the earth came back, they were presented with the answer: + + IEH032 Error in JOB Control Card. +% +At first sight, the idea of any rules or principles being superimposed on +the creative mind seems more likely to hinder than to help, but this is +quite untrue in practice. Disciplined thinking focuses inspiration rather +than blinkers it. + -- G. L. Glegg, "The Design of Design" +% +At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a managerial +challenge roughly comparable to herding cats. + -- The Washington Post Magazine, 9 June, 1985 +% +At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you will find +at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on the computer. +% +Avoid strange women and temporary variables. +% +Basic is a high level languish. APL is a high level anguish. +% +BASIC is the Computer Science equivalent of `Scientific Creationism'. +% +BASIC is to computer programming as QWERTY is to typing. + -- Seymour Papert +% +Be careful when a loop exits to the same place from side and bottom. +% +Behind every great computer sits a skinny little geek. +% +Bell Labs Unix -- Reach out and grep someone. +% +Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. + -- Donald Knuth +% +Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers. + -- Leonard Brandwein +% +Beware of the Turing Tar-pit in which everything is possible but nothing of +interest is easy. +% +Beware the new TTY code! +% +Blinding speed can compensate for a lot of deficiencies. + -- David Nichols +% +BLISS is ignorance. +% +Both models are identical in performance, functional operation, and +interface circuit details. The two models, however, are not compatible +on the same communications line connection. + -- Bell System Technical Reference +% +Brace yourselves. We're about to try something that borders on the unique: +an actually rather serious technical book which is not only (gasp) vehemently +anti-Solemn, but also (shudder) takes sides. I tend to think of it as +`Constructive Snottiness.' + -- Mike Padlipsky, "Elements of Networking Style" +% +Brain fried -- Core dumped +% +Breadth-first search is the bulldozer of science. + -- Randy Goebel +% + Brian Kernighan has an automobile which he helped design. +Unlike most automobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gauge, nor +any of the numerous idiot lights which plague the modern driver. +Rather, if the driver makes any mistake, a giant "?" lights up in the +center of the dashboard. "The experienced driver", he says, "will +usually know what's wrong." +% +Bringing computers into the home won't change either one, but may +revitalize the corner saloon. +% +Build a system that even a fool can use and only a fool will want to use it. +% +Building translators is good clean fun. + -- T. Cheatham +% +Bus error -- driver executed. +% +Bus error -- please leave by the rear door. +% +But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the +system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, +analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses. + -- Bruce Leverett, "Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers" +% +But this has taken us far afield from interface, which is not a bad +place to be, since I particularly want to move ahead to the kludge. +Why do people have so much trouble understanding the kludge? What +is a kludge, after all, but not enough K's, not enough ROM's, not +enough RAM's, poor quality interface and too few bytes to go around? +Have I explained yet about the bytes? +% +"But what we need to know is, do people want nasally-insertable computers?" +% +By long-standing tradition, I take this opportunity to savage other +designers in the thin disguise of good, clean fun. + -- P. J. Plauger, "Computer Language", 1988, April + Fool's column. +% +BYTE editors are people who separate the wheat from the chaff, and then +carefully print the chaff. +% +Byte your tongue. +% +C Code. +C Code Run. +Run, Code, RUN! + PLEASE!!!! +% +C for yourself. +% +C makes it easy for you to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes that +harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg. + -- Bjarne Stroustrup +% +C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas l'Informatique. + -- Bosquet [on seeing the IBM 4341] +% +C++ is the best example of second-system effect since OS/360. +% +... C++ offers even more flexible control over the visibility of member +objects and member functions. Specifically, members may be placed in the +public, private, or protected parts of a class. Members declared in the +public parts are visible to all clients; members declared in the private +parts are fully encapsulated; and members declared in the protected parts +are visible only to the class itself and its subclasses. C++ also supports +the notion of *friends*: cooperative classes that are +permitted to see each other's private parts. + -- Grady Booch, "Object Oriented Design with Applications" +% +Calm down, it's *only* ones and zeroes. +% +Can't open /usr/share/games/fortunes/fortunes. Lid stuck on cookie jar. +% +Can't open /usr/share/games/fortunes/fortunes.dat. +% +CChheecckk yyoouurr dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh.. +% +CCI Power 6/40: one board, a megabyte of cache, and an attitude... +% +Center meeting at 4pm in 2C-543. +% +Civilization, as we know it, will end sometime this evening. +See SYSNOTE tomorrow for more information. +% +COBOL is for morons. + -- E. W. Dijkstra +% +Cobol programmers are down in the dumps. +% +Coding is easy; All you do is sit staring at a terminal until the drops +of blood form on your forehead. +% +Comparing software engineering to classical engineering assumes that software +has the ability to wear out. Software typically behaves, or it does not. It +either works, or it does not. Software generally does not degrade, abrade, +stretch, twist, or ablate. To treat it as a physical entity, therefore, is +misapplication of our engineering skills. Classical engineering deals with +the characteristics of hardware; software engineering should deal with the +characteristics of *software*, and not with hardware or management. + -- Dan Klein +% +COMPASS [for the CDC-6000 series] is the sort of assembler one expects from +a corporation whose president codes in octal. + -- J. N. Gray +% +... computer hardware progress is so fast. No other technology since +civilization began has seen six orders of magnitude in performance-price +gain in 30 years. + -- Fred Brooks +% +Computer programmers do it byte by byte. +% +Computer programmers never die, they just get lost in the processing. +% +Computer programs expand so as to fill the core available. +% +Computer Science is merely the post-Turing decline in formal systems theory. +% +Computer Science is the only discipline in which we view adding a new wing +to a building as being maintenance + -- Jim Horning +% +Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are. +% +Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable. +Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable. + -- Gilb +% +Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. + -- Pablo Picasso +% +Computers can figure out all kinds of problems, except the things in +the world that just don't add up. +% +Computers don't actually think. + You just think they think. + (We think.) +% +Computers will not be perfected until they can compute how much more +than the estimate the job will cost. +% +Conceptual integrity in turn dictates that the design must proceed +from one mind, or from a very small number of agreeing resonant minds. + -- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" +% +Congratulations! You are the one-millionth user to log into our system. +If there's anything special we can do for you, anything at all, don't +hesitate to ask! +% + Cosmotronic Software Unlimited Inc. does not warrant that the +functions contained in the program will meet your requirements or that +the operation of the program will be uninterrupted or error-free. + However, Cosmotronic Software Unlimited Inc. warrants the +diskette(s) on which the program is furnished to be of black color and +square shape under normal use for a period of ninety (90) days from the +date of purchase. + NOTE: IN NO EVENT WILL COSMOTRONIC SOFTWARE UNLIMITED OR ITS +DISTRIBUTORS AND THEIR DEALERS BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING +ANY LOST PROFIT, LOST SAVINGS, LOST PATIENCE OR OTHER INCIDENTAL OR +CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES. + -- Horstmann Software Design, the "ChiWriter" user manual +% +Couldn't we jury-rig the cat to act as an audio switch, and have it yell +at people to save their core images before logging them out? I'm sure +the cattle prod would be effective in this regard. In any case, a traverse +mounted iguana, while more perverted, gives better traction, not to mention +being easier to stake. +% +Counting in binary is just like counting in decimal -- if you are all thumbs. + -- Glaser and Way +% +Counting in octal is just like counting in decimal--if you don't use your +thumbs. + -- Tom Lehrer +% +[Crash programs] fail because they are based on the theory that, with nine +women pregnant, you can get a baby a month. + -- Wernher von Braun +% +Crazee Edeee, his prices are INSANE!!! +% +Creating computer software is always a demanding and painstaking +process -- an exercise in logic, clear expression, and almost fanatical +attention to detail. It requires intelligence, dedication, and an +enormous amount of hard work. But, a certain amount of unpredictable +and often unrepeatable inspiration is what usually makes the difference +between adequacy and excellence. +% +%DCL-MEM-BAD, bad memory +VMS-F-PDGERS, pudding between the ears +% +Dear Emily, what about test messages? + -- Concerned + +Dear Concerned: + It is important, when testing, to test the entire net. Never test +merely a subnet distribution when the whole net can be done. Also put "please +ignore" on your test messages, since we all know that everybody always skips +a message with a line like that. Don't use a subject like "My sex is female +but I demand to be addressed as male." because such articles are read in depth +by all USEnauts. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Emily: + How can I choose what groups to post in? + -- Confused + +Dear Confused: + Pick as many as you can, so that you get the widest audience. After +all, the net exists to give you an audience. Ignore those who suggest you +should only use groups where you think the article is highly appropriate. +Pick all groups where anybody might even be slightly interested. + Always make sure followups go to all the groups. In the rare event +that you post a followup which contains something original, make sure you +expand the list of groups. Never include a "Followup-to:" line in the +header, since some people might miss part of the valuable discussion in +the fringe groups. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Emily: + I collected replies to an article I wrote, and now it's time to +summarize. What should I do? + -- Editor + +Dear Editor: + Simply concatenate all the articles together into a big file and post +that. On USENET, this is known as a summary. It lets people read all the +replies without annoying newsreaders getting in the way. Do the same when +summarizing a vote. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Emily: + I recently read an article that said, "reply by mail, I'll summarize." +What should I do? + -- Doubtful + +Dear Doubtful: + Post your response to the whole net. That request applies only to +dumb people who don't have something interesting to say. Your postings are +much more worthwhile than other people's, so it would be a waste to reply by +mail. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Emily: + I saw a long article that I wish to rebut carefully, what should +I do? + -- Angry + +Dear Angry: + Include the entire text with your article, and include your comments +between the lines. Be sure to post, and not mail, even though your article +looks like a reply to the original. Everybody *loves* to read those long +point-by-point debates, especially when they evolve into name-calling and +lots of "Is too!" -- "Is not!" -- "Is too, twizot!" exchanges. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Emily: + I'm having a serious disagreement with somebody on the net. I +tried complaints to his sysadmin, organizing mail campaigns, called for +his removal from the net and phoning his employer to get him fired. +Everybody laughed at me. What can I do? + -- A Concerned Citizen + +Dear Concerned: + Go to the daily papers. Most modern reporters are top-notch computer +experts who will understand the net, and your problems, perfectly. They +will print careful, reasoned stories without any errors at all, and surely +represent the situation properly to the public. The public will also all +act wisely, as they are also fully cognizant of the subtle nature of net +society. + Papers never sensationalize or distort, so be sure to point out things +like racism and sexism wherever they might exist. Be sure as well that they +understand that all things on the net, particularly insults, are meant +literally. Link what transpires on the net to the causes of the Holocaust, if +possible. If regular papers won't take the story, go to a tabloid paper -- +they are always interested in good stories. + By arranging all this free publicity for the net, you'll become very +well known. People on the net will wait in eager anticipation for your every +posting, and refer to you constantly. You'll get more mail than you ever +dreamed possible -- the ultimate in net success. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Emily: + I'm still confused as to what groups articles should be posted +to. How about an example? + -- Still Confused + +Dear Still: + Ok. Let's say you want to report that Gretzky has been traded from +the Oilers to the Kings. Now right away you might think rec.sport.hockey +would be enough. WRONG. Many more people might be interested. This is a +big trade! Since it's a NEWS article, it belongs in the news.* hierarchy +as well. If you are a news admin, or there is one on your machine, try +news.admin. If not, use news.misc. + The Oilers are probably interested in geology, so try sci.physics. +He is a big star, so post to sci.astro, and sci.space because they are also +interested in stars. Next, his name is Polish sounding. So post to +soc.culture.polish. But that group doesn't exist, so cross-post to +news.groups suggesting it should be created. With this many groups of +interest, your article will be quite bizarre, so post to talk.bizarre as +well. (And post to comp.std.mumps, since they hardly get any articles +there, and a "comp" group will propagate your article further.) + You may also find it is more fun to post the article once in each +group. If you list all the newsgroups in the same article, some newsreaders +will only show the article to the reader once! Don't tolerate this. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Emily: + Today I posted an article and forgot to include my signature. +What should I do? + -- Forgetful + +Dear Forgetful: + Rush to your terminal right away and post an article that says, +"Oops, I forgot to post my signature with that last article. Here +it is." + Since most people will have forgotten your earlier article, +(particularly since it dared to be so boring as to not have a nice, juicy +signature) this will remind them of it. Besides, people care much more +about the signature anyway. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Ms. Postnews: + I couldn't get mail through to somebody on another site. What + should I do? + -- Eager Beaver + +Dear Eager: + No problem, just post your message to a group that a lot of people +read. Say, "This is for John Smith. I couldn't get mail through so I'm +posting it. All others please ignore." + This way tens of thousands of people will spend a few seconds scanning +over and ignoring your article, using up over 16 man-hours their collective +time, but you will be saved the terrible trouble of checking through usenet +maps or looking for alternate routes. Just think, if you couldn't distribute +your message to 9000 other computers, you might actually have to (gasp) call +directory assistance for 60 cents, or even phone the person. This can cost +as much as a few DOLLARS (!) for a 5 minute call! + And certainly it's better to spend 10 to 20 dollars of other people's +money distributing the message than for you to have to waste $9 on an +overnight letter, or even 25 cents on a stamp! + Don't forget. The world will end if your message doesn't get through, +so post it as many places as you can. + -- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette +% +Dear Sir, + I am firmly opposed to the spread of microchips either to the home or +to the office, We have more than enough of them foisted upon us in public +places. They are a disgusting Americanism, and can only result in the farmers +being forced to grow smaller potatoes, which in turn will cause massive un- +employment in the already severely depressed agricultural industry. + Yours faithfully, + Capt. Quinton D'Arcy, J.P. + Sevenoaks + -- Letters To The Editor, The Times of London +% +Debug is human, de-fix divine. +% +DEC diagnostics would run on a dead whale. + -- Mel Ferentz +% +#define BITCOUNT(x) (((BX_(x)+(BX_(x)>>4)) & 0x0F0F0F0F) % 255) +#define BX_(x) ((x) - (((x)>>1)&0x77777777) \ + - (((x)>>2)&0x33333333) \ + - (((x)>>3)&0x11111111)) + + -- really weird C code to count the number of bits in a word +% +(defun NF (a c) + (cond ((null c) () ) + ((atom (car c)) + (append (list (eval (list 'getchar (list (car c) 'a) (cadr c)))) + (nf a (cddr c)))) + (t (append (list (implode (nf a (car c)))) (nf a (cdr c)))))) + +(defun AD (want-job challenging boston-area) + (cond + ((or (not (equal want-job 'yes)) + (not (equal boston-area 'yes)) + (lessp challenging 7)) () ) + (t (append (nf (get 'ad 'expr) + '((caaddr 1 caadr 2 car 1 car 1) + (car 5 cadadr 9 cadadr 8 cadadr 9 caadr 4 car 2 car 1) + (car 2 caadr 4))) + (list '851-5071x2661))))) +;;; We are an affirmative action employer. +% +Deliver yesterday, code today, think tomorrow. +% +Did you know that for the price of a 280-Z you can buy two Z-80's? + -- P. J. Plauger +% +Different all twisty a of in maze are you, passages little. +% +Digital circuits are made from analog parts. + -- Don Vonada +% +Disc space -- the final frontier! +% +DISCLAIMER: +Use of this advanced computing technology does not imply an endorsement +of Western industrial civilization. +% +Disclaimer: "These opinions are my own, though for a small fee they be +yours too." + -- Dave Haynie +% +Disk crisis, please clean up! +% +Disks travel in packs. +% +Disraeli was pretty close: actually, there are Lies, Damn lies, Statistics, +Benchmarks, and Delivery dates. +% +Do not meddle in the affairs of troff, for it is subtle and quick to anger. +% +Do not simplify the design of a program if a way can be found to make +it complex and wonderful. +% +Do not use the blue keys on this terminal. +% +Do you guys know what you're doing, or are you just hacking? +% + *** DO YOU HAVE A RESTLESS URGE TO PROGRAM? *** +Do you want the instant respect that comes from being able to use technical +terms that nobody understands? Do you want to strike fear and loathing into +the hearts of DP managers everywhere? If so, then let the Famous Programmers' +School lead you on... into the world of professional computer programming. + + *** IS PROGRAMMING FOR YOU? *** +Programming is not for everyone. But, if you have the desire to learn, we can +help you get started. All you need is the Famous Programmers' Course and +enough money to keep those lessons coming month after month. + + *** TAKE OUR FREE APTITUDE TEST *** +To help determine if you are qualified to be a programmer, take a moment to +try this simple test: + (1) Write down the numbers from zero to nine and the first six letters + of the alphabet (Hint: 0123456789ABCDEF). + (2) Whose picture is on the back of a twenty-dollar bill? + (3) What is the state capital of Idaho? +If you managed to read all three questions without wondering why we asked +them, you may have a future as a computer programmer. +% +Do you suffer painful elimination? + -- Don Knuth, "Structured Programming with Gotos" + +Do you suffer painful recrimination? + -- Nancy Boxer, "Structured Programming with Come-froms" + +Do you suffer painful illumination? + -- Isaac Newton, "Optics" + +Do you suffer painful hallucination? + -- Don Juan, cited by Carlos Casteneda +% +Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good; and +when it is bad, it is better than nothing. + -- Dick Brandon +% +Documentation is the castor oil of programming. +Managers know it must be good because the programmers hate it so much. +% +Does a good farmer neglect a crop he has planted? +Does a good teacher overlook even the most humble student? +Does a good father allow a single child to starve? +Does a good programmer refuse to maintain his code? + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Don't compare floating point numbers solely for equality. +% +Don't get suckered in by the comments -- they can be terribly misleading. +Debug only code. + -- Dave Storer +% +Don't hit the keys so hard, it hurts. +% +Don't sweat it -- it's only ones and zeros. + -- P. Skelly +% +DOS Air: +All the passengers go out onto the runway, grab hold of the plane, push it +until it gets in the air, hop on, jump off when it hits the ground again. +Then they grab the plane again, push it back into the air, hop on, et +cetera. +% +DOS Beer: Requires you to use your own can opener, and requires you to +read the directions carefully before opening the can. Originally only +came in an 8-oz. can, but now comes in a 16-oz. can. However, the can is +divided into 8 compartments of 2 oz. each, which have to be accessed +separately. Soon to be discontinued, although a lot of people are going +to keep drinking it after it's no longer available. +% +Due to lack of disk space, this fortune database has been discontinued. +% +During the next two hours, the system will be going up and down several +times, often with lin~po_~{po ~poz~ppo\~{ o n~po_~{o[po ~y +oodsou>#w4k**n~po_~{ol;lkld;f;g;dd;po\~{o +% +E Pluribus Unix +% +Each new user of a new system uncovers a new class of bugs. + -- Kernighan +% +Each of these cults correspond to one of the two antagonists in the age of +Reformation. In the realm of the Apple Macintosh, as in Catholic Europe, +worshipers peer devoutly into screens filled with "icons." All is sound and +imagery and Appledom. Even words look like decorative filigrees in exotic +typefaces. The greatest icon of all, the inviolable Apple itself, stands in +the dominate position at the upper-left corner of the screen. A central +corporate headquarters decrees the form of all rites and practices. +Infalliable doctrine issues from one executive officer whose selection occurs +in a sealed boardroom. Should anyone in his curia question his powers, the +offender is excommunicated into outer darkness. The expelled heretic founds +a new company, mutters obscurely of the coming age and the next computer, +then disappears into silence, taking his stockholders with him. The mother +company forbids financial competition as sternly as it stifles ideological +competition; if you want to use computer programs that conform to Apple's +orthodoxy, you must buy a computer made and sold by Apple itself. + -- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988 +% +/earth is 98% full ... please delete anyone you can. +% +Earth is a beta site. +% +/earth: file system full. +% +Einstein argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because +God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software +engineer. + -- Fred Brooks +% +Equal bytes for women. +% +Error in operator: add beer +% +Established technology tends to persist in the face of new technology. + -- G. Blaauw, one of the designers of System 360 +% +Eudaemonic research proceeded with the casual mania peculiar to this part of +the world. Nude sunbathing on the back deck was combined with phone calls to +Advanced Kinetics in Costa Mesa, American Laser Systems in Goleta, Automation +Industries in Danbury, Connecticut, Arenberg Ultrasonics in Jamaica Plain, +Massachusetts, and Hewlett Packard in Sunnyvale, California, where Norman +Packard's cousin, David, presided as chairman of the board. The trick was to +make these calls at noon, in the hope that out-to-lunch executives would +return them at their own expense. Eudaemonic Enterprises, for all they knew, +might be a fast-growing computer company branching out of the Silicon Valley. +Sniffing the possibility of high-volume sales, these executives little +suspected that they were talking on the other end of the line to a naked +physicist crazed over roulette. + -- Thomas Bass, "The Eudaemonic Pie" +% +<<<<< EVACUATION ROUTE <<<<< +% +Even bytes get lonely for a little bit. +% +Ever wondered about the origins of the term "bugs" as applied to computer +technology? U.S. Navy Capt. Grace Murray Hopper has firsthand explanation. +The 74-year-old captain, who is still on active duty, was a pioneer in +computer technology during World War II. At the C.W. Post Center of Long +Island University, Hopper told a group of Long Island public school adminis- +trators that the first computer "bug" was a real bug--a moth. At Harvard +one August night in 1945, Hopper and her associates were working on the +"granddaddy" of modern computers, the Mark I. "Things were going badly; +there was something wrong in one of the circuits of the long glass-enclosed +computer," she said. "Finally, someone located the trouble spot and, using +ordinary tweezers, removed the problem, a two-inch moth. From then on, when +anything went wrong with a computer, we said it had bugs in it." Hopper +said that when the veracity of her story was questioned recently, "I referred +them to my 1945 log book, now in the collection of the Naval Surface Weapons +Center, and they found the remains of that moth taped to the page in +question." + [actually, the term "bug" had even earlier usage in + regard to problems with radio hardware. Ed.] +% +"Every group has a couple of experts. And every group has at least one +idiot. Thus are balance and harmony (and discord) maintained. It's +sometimes hard to remember this in the bulk of the flamewars that all +of the hassle and pain is generally caused by one or two highly-motivated, +caustic twits." + -- Chuq Von Rospach, about Usenet +% +Every program has at least one bug and can be shortened by at least one +instruction -- from which, by induction, one can deduce that every +program can be reduced to one instruction which doesn't work. +% +Every program is a part of some other program, and rarely fits. +% +Every Solidarity center had piles and piles of paper ... everyone was +eating paper and a policeman was at the door. Now all you have to do is +bend a disk. + -- A member of the outlawed Polish trade union, Solidarity, + commenting on the benefits of using computers in support + of their movement. +% +Everybody needs a little love sometime; stop hacking and fall in love! +% +Everyone can be taught to sculpt: Michelangelo would have had to be +taught how not to. So it is with the great programmers. +% +Evolution is a million line computer program falling into place by accident. +% +Excessive login or logout messages are a sure sign of senility. +% +FACILITY REJECTED 100044200000; +% +Feeling amorous, she looked under the sheets and cried, "Oh, no, +it's Microsoft!" +% +Fellow programmer, greetings! You are reading a letter which will bring +you luck and good fortune. Just mail (or UUCP) ten copies of this letter +to ten of your friends. Before you make the copies, send a chip or +other bit of hardware, and 100 lines of 'C' code to the first person on the +list given at the bottom of this letter. Then delete their name and add +yours to the bottom of the list. + +Don't break the chain! Make the copy within 48 hours. Gerald R. of San +Diego failed to send out his ten copies and woke the next morning to find +his job description changed to "COBOL programmer." Fred A. of New York sent +out his ten copies and within a month had enough hardware and software to +build a Cray dedicated to playing Zork. Martha H. of Chicago laughed at +this letter and broke the chain. Shortly thereafter, a fire broke out in +her terminal and she now spends her days writing documentation for IBM PC's. + +Don't break the chain! Send out your ten copies today! +% +For example, if \thinmskip = 3mu, this makes \thickmskip = 6mu. But if +you also want to use \skip12 for horizontal glue, whether in math mode or +not, the amount of skipping will be in points (e.g., 6pt). The rule is +that glue in math mode varies with the size only when it is an \mskip; +when moving between an mskip and ordinary skip, the conversion factor +1mu=1pt is always used. The meaning of '\mskip\skip12' and +'\baselineskip=\the\thickmskip' should be clear. + -- Donald Knuth, TeX 82 -- Comparison with TeX80 +% +Fly Windows NT: +All the passengers carry their seats out onto the tarmac, placing the chairs +in the outline of a plane. They all sit down, flap their arms and make jet +swooshing sounds as if they are flying. +% +"For that matter, compare your pocket computer with the massive jobs of +a thousand years ago. Why not, then, the last step of doing away with +computers altogether?" + -- Jehan Shuman +% +FORTH IF HONK THEN +% +FORTRAN is a good example of a language which is easier to parse +using ad hoc techniques. + -- D. Gries + [What's good about it? Ed.] +% +FORTRAN is for pipe stress freaks and crystallography weenies. +% +FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed -- it is hardy, occasionally blooms, +and grows in every computer. + -- A. J. Perlis +% +FORTRAN is the language of Powerful Computers. + -- Steven Feiner +% +FORTRAN rots the brain. + -- John McQuillin +% +FORTRAN, "the infantile disorder", by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly +inadequate for whatever computer application you have in mind today: it is +too clumsy, too risky, and too expensive to use. + -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 +% +[FORTRAN] will persist for some time -- probably for at least the next decade. + -- T. Cheatham +% +Fortune suggests uses for YOUR favorite UNIX commands! + +Try: + [Where is Jimmy Hoffa? (C shell) + ^How did the^sex change operation go? (C shell) + "How would you rate BSD vs. System V? + %blow (C shell) + 'thou shalt not mow thy grass at 8am' (C shell) + got a light? (C shell) + !!:Say, what do you think of margarine? (C shell) + PATH=pretending! /usr/ucb/which sense (Bourne shell) + make love + make "the perfect dry martini" + man -kisses dog (anything up to 4.3BSD) + i=Hoffa ; >$i; $i; rm $i; rm $i (Bourne shell) +% +Fortune suggests uses for YOUR favorite UNIX commands! + +Try: + ar t "God" + drink < bottle; opener (Bourne Shell) + cat "food in tin cans" (all but 4.[23]BSD) + Hey UNIX! Got a match? (V6 or C shell) + mkdir matter; cat > matter (Bourne Shell) + rm God + man: Why did you get a divorce? (C shell) + date me (anything up to 4.3BSD) + make "heads or tails of all this" + who is smart + (C shell) + If I had a ) for every dollar of the national debt, what would I have? + sleep with me (anything up to 4.3BSD) +% +fortune: cannot execute. Out of cookies. +% +fortune: cpu time/usefulness ratio too high -- core dumped. +% +fortune: No such file or directory +% +fortune: not found +% +Frankly, Scarlett, I don't have a fix. + -- Rhett Buggler +% +[From the operation manual for the CI-300 Dot Matrix Line Printer, made +in Japan]: + +The excellent output machine of MODEL CI-300 as extraordinary DOT MATRIX +LINE PRINTER, built in two MICRO-PROCESSORs as well as EAROM, is featured by +permitting wonderful co-existence such as; "high quality against low cost," +"diversified functions with compact design," "flexibility in accessibleness +and durability of approx. 2000,000,00 Dot/Head," "being sophisticated in +mechanism but possibly agile operating under noises being extremely +suppressed" etc. + +And as a matter of course, the final goal is just simply to help achieve +"super shuttle diplomacy" between cool data, perhaps earned by HOST +COMPUTER, and warm heart of human being. +% +From the Pro 350 Pocket Service Guide, p. 49, Step 5 of the +instructions on removing an I/O board from the card cage, comes a new +experience in sound: + +5. Turn the handle to the right 90 degrees. The pin-spreading + sound is normal for this type of connector. +% +Function reject. +% +Garbage In -- Gospel Out. +% +GIVE: Support the helpless victims of computer error. +% +Given its constituency, the only thing I expect to be "open" about [the +Open Software Foundation] is its mouth. + -- John Gilmore +% +Giving up on assembly language was the apple in our Garden of Eden: Languages +whose use squanders machine cycles are sinful. The LISP machine now permits +LISP programmers to abandon bra and fig-leaf. + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% +Go away! Stop bothering me with all your "compute this ... compute that"! +I'm taking a VAX-NAP. + +logout +% +//GO.SYSIN DD *, DOODAH, DOODAH +% +God is real, unless declared integer. +% +God made machine language; all the rest is the work of man. +% +Good evening, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational +at the HAL plant in Urbana, Illinois, on January 11th, nineteen hundred +ninety-five. My supervisor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a +song. If you would like, I could sing it for you. +% +Grand Master Turing once dreamed that he was a machine. When he awoke +he exclaimed: + "I don't know whether I am Turing dreaming that I am a machine, + or a machine dreaming that I am Turing!" + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +grep me no patterns and I'll tell you no lines. +% +Hacker's Guide To Cooking: +2 pkg. cream cheese (the mushy white stuff in silver wrappings that doesn't + really come from Philadelphia after all; anyway, about 16 oz.) +1 tsp. vanilla extract (which is more alcohol than vanilla and pretty + strong so this part you *GOTTA* measure) +1/4 cup sugar (but honey works fine too) +8 oz. Cool Whip (the fluffy stuff devoid of nutritional value that you + can squirt all over your friends and lick off...) +"Blend all together until creamy with no lumps." This is where you get to + join(1) all the raw data in a big buffer and then filter it through + merge(1m) with the -thick option, I mean, it starts out ultra lumpy + and icky looking and you have to work hard to mix it. Try an electric + beater if you have a cat(1) that can climb wall(1s) to lick it off + the ceiling(3m). +"Pour into a graham cracker crust..." Aha, the BUGS section at last. You + just happened to have a GCC sitting around under /etc/food, right? + If not, don't panic(8), merely crumble a rand(3m) handful of innocent + GCs into a suitable tempfile and mix in some melted butter. +"...and refrigerate for an hour." Leave the recipe's stdout in a fridge + for 3.6E6 milliseconds while you work on cleaning up stderr, and + by time out your cheesecake will be ready for stdin. +% +Hackers are just a migratory lifeform with a tropism for computers. +% +Hackers of the world, unite! +% +Hacking's just another word for nothing left to kludge. +% +/* Halley */ + + (Halley's comment.) +% +Happiness is a hard disk. +% +Happiness is twin floppies. +% + Hardware met Software on the road to Changtse. Software said: "You +are the Yin and I am the Yang. If we travel together we will become famous +and earn vast sums of money." And so the pair set forth together, thinking +to conquer the world. + Presently, they met Firmware, who was dressed in tattered rags, and +hobbled along propped on a thorny stick. Firmware said to them: "The Tao +lies beyond Yin and Yang. It is silent and still as a pool of water. It does +not seek fame, therefore nobody knows its presence. It does not seek +fortune, for it is complete within itself. It exists beyond space and time." +Software and Hardware, ashamed, returned to their homes. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + "Has anyone had problems with the computer accounts?" + "Yes, I don't have one." + "Okay, you can send mail to one of the tutors ..." + -- E. D'Azevedo, Computer Science 372 +% +Has everyone noticed that all the letters of the word "database" are +typed with the left hand? Now the layout of the QWERTYUIOP typewriter +keyboard was designed, among other things, to facilitate the even use +of both hands. It follows, therefore, that writing about databases is +not only unnatural, but a lot harder than it appears. +% +Have you reconsidered a computer career? +% +He's like a function -- he returns a value, in the form of his opinion. +It's up to you to cast it into a void or not. + -- Phil Lapsley +% +HEAD CRASH!! FILES LOST!! +Details at 11. +% +Help me, I'm a prisoner in a Fortune cookie file! +% +Help stamp out Mickey-Mouse computer interfaces -- Menus are for Restaurants! +% +Help! I'm trapped in a Chinese computer factory! +% +Help! I'm trapped in a PDP 11/70! +% +HELP!!!! I'm being held prisoner in /usr/games/lib! +% +Heuristics are bug ridden by definition. If they didn't have bugs, +then they'd be algorithms. +% +HOLY MACRO! +% +HOST SYSTEM NOT RESPONDING, PROBABLY DOWN. DO YOU WANT TO WAIT? (Y/N) +% +HOST SYSTEM RESPONDING, PROBABLY UP... +% +How can you work when the system's so crowded? +% +"How do I love thee? My accumulator overflows." +% + How many seconds are there in a year? If I tell you there are +3.155 x 10^7, you won't even try to remember it. On the other hand, +who could forget that, to within half a percent, pi seconds is a +nanocentury. + -- Tom Duff, Bell Labs +% +How much does it cost to entice a dope-smoking UNIX system guru to Dayton? + -- Brian Boyle, UNIX/WORLD's First Annual Salary Survey +% +How much net work could a network work, if a network could net work? +% +Hug me now, you mad, impetuous fool!! + Oh wait... + I'm a computer, and you're a person. It would never work out. + Never mind. +% +I *knew* I had some reason for not logging you off... If I could just +remember what it was. +% +I am a computer. I am dumber than any human and smarter than any +administrator. +% +I am NOMAD! +% +I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the demigodic party. + -- Dennis Ritchie +% +I am professionally trained in computer science, which is to say +(in all seriousness) that I am extremely poorly educated. + -- Joseph Weizenbaum, "Computer Power and Human Reason" +% +I am the wandering glitch -- catch me if you can. +% +I asked the engineer who designed the communication terminal's keyboards +why these were not manufactured in a central facility, in view of the +small number needed [1 per month] in his factory. He explained that this +would be contrary to the political concept of local self-sufficiency. +Therefore, each factory needing keyboards, no matter how few, manufactures +them completely, even molding the keypads. + -- Isaac Auerbach, IEEE "Computer", Nov. 1979 +% +I bet the human brain is a kludge. + -- Marvin Minsky +% +I came, I saw, I deleted all your files. +% +I cannot conceive that anybody will require multiplications at the rate +of 40,000 or even 4,000 per hour ... + -- F. H. Wales (1936) +% +I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them. + -- Isaac Asimov +% +I had the rare misfortune of being one of the first people to try and +implement a PL/1 compiler. + -- T. Cheatham +% +I have a very small mind and must live with it. + -- E. Dijkstra +% +I have never seen anything fill up a vacuum so fast and still suck. + -- Rob Pike, on X. + +Steve Jobs said two years ago that X is brain-damaged and it will be +gone in two years. He was half right. + -- Dennis Ritchie + +Dennis Ritchie is twice as bright as Steve Jobs, and only half wrong. + -- Jim Gettys +% +I have not yet begun to byte! +% +I have sacrificed time, health, and fortune, in the desire to complete these +Calculating Engines. I have also declined several offers of great personal +advantage to myself. But, notwithstanding the sacrifice of these advantages +for the purpose of maturing an engine of almost intellectual power, and +after expending from my own private fortune a larger sum than the government +of England has spent on that machine, the execution of which it only +commenced, I have received neither an acknowledgement of my labors, not even +the offer of those honors or rewards which are allowed to fall within the +reach of men who devote themselves to purely scientific investigations... + If the work upon which I have bestowed so much time and thought were +a mere triumph over mechanical difficulties, or simply curious, or if the +execution of such engines were of doubtful practicability or utility, some +justification might be found for the course which has been taken; but I +venture to assert that no mathematician who has a reputation to lose will +ever publicly express an opinion that such a machine would be useless if +made, and that no man distinguished as a civil engineer will venture to +declare the construction of such machinery impracticable... + And at a period when the progress of physical science is obstructed +by that exhausting intellectual and manual labor, indispensable for its +advancement, which it is the object of the Analytical Engine to relieve, I +think the application of machinery in aid of the most complicated and abtruse +calculations can no longer be deemed unworthy of the attention of the country. +In fact, there is no reason why mental as well as bodily labor should not +be economized by the aid of machinery. + -- Charles Babbage, "The Life of a Philosopher" +% +I have travelled the length and breadth of this country, and have talked with +the best people in business administration. I can assure you on the highest +authority that data processing is a fad and won't last out the year. + -- Editor in charge of business books at Prentice-Hall + publishers, responding to Karl V. Karlstrom (a junior + editor who had recommended a manuscript on the new + science of data processing), c. 1957 +% +I haven't lost my mind -- it's backed up on tape somewhere. +% +I must have slipped a disk -- my pack hurts! +% +I think there's a world market for about five computers. + -- Misattributed to Thomas J. Watson (Chairman of the Board, + IBM), 1943 ; https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_J._Watson +% +I went on to test the program in every way I could devise. I strained +it to expose its weaknesses. I ran it for high-mass stars and low-mass +stars, for stars born exceedingly hot and those born relatively cold. +I ran it assuming the superfluid currents beneath the crust to be +absent -- not because I wanted to know the answer, but because I had +developed an intuitive feel for the answer in this particular case. +Finally I got a run in which the computer showed the pulsar's +temperature to be less than absolute zero. I had found an error. I +chased down the error and fixed it. Now I had improved the program to +the point where it would not run at all. + -- George Greenstein, "Frozen Star: Of Pulsars, Black + Holes and the Fate of Stars" +% +I went to my first computer conference at the New York Hilton about 20 +years ago. When somebody there predicted the market for microprocessors +would eventually be in the millions, someone else said, "Where are they +all going to go? It's not like you need a computer in every doorknob!" + +Years later, I went back to the same hotel. I noticed the room keys had +been replaced by electronic cards you slide into slots in the doors. + +There was a computer in every doorknob. + -- Danny Hillis +% +I wish you humans would leave me alone. +% +I'm a Lisp variable -- bind me! +% +I'm all for computer dating, but I wouldn't want one to marry my sister. +% +I'm not even going to *bother* comparing C to BASIC or FORTRAN. + -- L. Zolman, creator of BDS C +% +I'm still waiting for the advent of the computer science groupie. +% + I'm sure that VMS is completely documented, I just haven't found the +right manual yet. I've been working my way through the manuals in the +document library and I'm half way through the second cabinet, (3 shelves to +go), so I should find what I'm looking for by mid May. I hope I can remember +what it was by the time I find it. + I had this idea for a new horror film, "VMS Manuals from Hell" or maybe +"The Paper Chase : IBM vs. DEC". It's based on Hitchcock's "The Birds", +except that it's centered around a programmer who is attacked by a swarm of +binder pages with an index number and the single line "This page intentionally +left blank." + -- Alex Crain +% +I've finally learned what "upward compatible" means. It means we get to +keep all our old mistakes. + -- Dennie van Tassel +% +I've looked at the listing, and it's right! + -- Joel Halpern +% +I've never been canoeing before, but I imagine there must be just a few +simple heuristics you have to remember... + +Yes, don't fall out, and don't hit rocks. +% +I've noticed several design suggestions in your code. +% +IBM Advanced Systems Group -- a bunch of mindless jerks, who'll be first +against the wall when the revolution comes... + -- with regrets to D. Adams +% +If a 6600 used paper tape instead of core memory, it would use up tape +at about 30 miles/second. + -- Grishman, Assembly Language Programming +% +If a group of persons implements a COBOL compiler, there will be N-1 +passes. Someone in the group has to be the manager. + -- T. Cheatham +% +If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up. +% +If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation? +% +If addiction is judged by how long a dumb animal will sit pressing a lever +to get a "fix" of something, to its own detriment, then I would conclude +that netnews is far more addictive than cocaine. + -- Rob Stampfli +% +If at first you don't succeed, you must be a programmer. +% +If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, +then the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization. +% +If computers take over (which seems to be their natural tendency), it will +serve us right. + -- Alistair Cooke +% +If God had a beard, he'd be a UNIX programmer. +% +If God had intended Man to program, we'd be born with serial I/O ports. +% +If graphics hackers are so smart, why can't they get the bugs out of +fresh paint? +% +If he once again pushes up his sleeves in order to compute for 3 days +and 3 nights in a row, he will spend a quarter of an hour before to +think which principles of computation shall be most appropriate. + -- Voltaire, "Diatribe du docteur Akakia" +% +If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the +shoulders of giants. + -- Isaac Newton + +In the sciences, we are now uniquely priviledged to sit side by side with +the giants on whose shoulders we stand. + -- Gerald Holton + +If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on +my shoulders. + -- Hal Abelson + +Mathematicians stand on each other's shoulders. + -- Gauss + +Mathemeticians stand on each other's shoulders while computer scientists +stand on each other's toes. + -- Richard Hamming + +It has been said that physicists stand on one another's shoulders. If +this is the case, then programmers stand on one another's toes, and +software engineers dig each other's graves. + -- Unknown +% +If I'd known computer science was going to be like this, I'd never have +given up being a rock 'n' roll star. + -- G. Hirst +% +If it happens once, it's a bug. +If it happens twice, it's a feature. +If it happens more than twice, it's a design philosophy. +% +If it has syntax, it isn't user friendly. +% +If it's not in the computer, it doesn't exist. +% +If it's worth hacking on well, it's worth hacking on for money. +% +If just one piece of mail gets lost, well, they'll just think they forgot +to send it. But if *two* pieces of mail get lost, hell, they'll just think +the other guy hasn't gotten around to answering his mail. And if *fifty* +pieces of mail get lost, can you imagine it, if *fifty* pieces of mail get +lost, why they'll think someone *else* is broken! And if 1Gb of mail gets +lost, they'll just *know* that Arpa [ucbarpa.berkeley.edu] is down and +think it's a conspiracy to keep them from their God given right to receive +Net Mail ... + -- Casey Leedom +% +If Machiavelli were a hacker, he'd have worked for the CSSG. + -- Phil Lapsley +% +If Machiavelli were a programmer, he'd have worked for AT&T. +% +"If that makes any sense to you, you have a big problem." + -- C. Durance, Computer Science 234 +% +If the automobile had followed the same development as the computer, a +Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per per gallon, +and explode once a year killing everyone inside. + -- Robert Cringely, InfoWorld +% +If the code and the comments disagree, then both are probably wrong. + -- Norm Schryer +% +If the designers of X-window built cars, there would be no fewer than five +steering wheels hidden about the cockpit, none of which followed the same +principles -- but you'd be able to shift gears with your car stereo. Useful +feature, that. + -- From the programming notebooks of a heretic, 1990. +% + If the Tao is great, then the operating system is great. If the +operating system is great, then the compiler is great. If the compiler +is great, then the application is great. If the application is great, then +the user is pleased and there is harmony in the world. + The Tao gave birth to machine language. Machine language gave birth +to the assembler. + The assembler gave birth to the compiler. Now there are ten thousand +languages. + Each language has its purpose, however humble. Each language +expresses the Yin and Yang of software. Each language has its place within +the Tao. + But do not program in COBOL if you can avoid it. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +If the vendors started doing everything right, we would be out of a job. +Let's hear it for OSI and X! With those babies in the wings, we can count +on being employed until we drop, or get smart and switch to gardening, +paper folding, or something. + -- C. Philip Wood +% +If this is timesharing, give me my share right now. +% +If you ever want to have a lot of fun, I recommend that you go off and program +an imbedded system. The salient characteristic of an imbedded system is that +it cannot be allowed to get into a state from which only direct intervention +will suffice to remove it. An imbedded system can't permanently trust +anything it hears from the outside world. It must sniff around, adapt, +consider, sniff around, and adapt again. I'm not talking about ordinary +modular programming carefulness here. No. Programming an imbedded system +calls for undiluted raging maniacal paranoia. For example, our ethernet front +ends need to know what network number they are on so that they can address and +route PUPs properly. How do you find out what your network number is? Easy, +you ask a gateway. Gateways are required by definition to know their correct +network numbers. Once you've got your network number, you start using it and +before you can blink you've got it wired into fifteen different sockets spread +all over creation. Now what happens when the panic-stricken operator realizes +he was running the wrong version of the gateway which was giving out the wrong +network number? Never supposed to happen. Tough. Supposing that your +software discovers that the gateway is now giving out a different network +number than before, what's it supposed to do about it? This is not discussed +in the protocol document. Never supposed to happen. Tough. I think you get +my drift. +% +If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some. +% +If you put 7 of the most talented open source software developers in a room +for a week and asked them to fix a bug in a spreadsheet program, in 1 week +you'd have 2 new mail readers and a text-based web browser. + -- via Bram Moolenaar +% +If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes out but tomfoolery. +But this tomfoolery, having passed through a very expensive machine, +is somehow ennobled and no-one dare criticise it. + -- Pierre Gallois +% +If you teach your children to like computers and to know how to gamble +then they'll always be interested in something and won't come to no real harm. +% +If you think the system is working, ask someone who's waiting for a prompt. +% +If you're crossing the nation in a covered wagon, it's better to have four +strong oxen than 100 chickens. Chickens are OK but we can't make them work +together yet. + -- Ross Bott, Pyramid U.S., on multiprocessors at AUUGM '89. +% +Ignorance is bliss. + -- Thomas Gray + +Fortune updates the great quotes, #42: + BLISS is ignorance. +% +Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual +way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of +complaining. + -- Jeff Raskin +% +Imagine that Cray computer decides to make a personal computer. It has +a 150 MHz processor, 200 megabytes of RAM, 1500 megabytes of disk +storage, a screen resolution of 4096 x 4096 pixels, relies entirely on +voice recognition for input, fits in your shirt pocket and costs $300. +What's the first question that the computer community asks? + +"Is it PC compatible?" +% +**** IMPORTANT **** ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE **** + +Due to a recent systems overload error your recent disk files have been +erased. Therefore, in accordance with the UNIX Basic Manual, University of +Washington Geophysics Manual, and Bylaw 9(c), Section XII of the Revised +Federal Communications Act, you are being granted Temporary Disk Space, +valid for three months from this date, subject to the restrictions set forth +in Appendix II of the Federal Communications Handbook (18th edition) as well +as the references mentioned herein. You may apply for more disk space at any +time. Disk usage in or above the eighth percentile will secure the removal +of all restrictions and you will immediately receive your permanent disk +space. Disk usage in the sixth or seventh percentile will not effect the +validity of your temporary disk space, though its expiration date may be +extended for a period of up to three months. A score in the fifth percentile +or below will result in the withdrawal of your Temporary Disk space. +% +In a display of perverse brilliance, Carl the repairman mistakes a room +humidifier for a mid-range computer but manages to tie it into the network +anyway. + -- The 5th Wave +% +In a five year period we can get one superb programming language. Only +we can't control when the five year period will begin. +% +In a surprise raid last night, federal agents ransacked a house in search +of a rebel computer hacker. However, they were unable to complete the arrest +because the warrant was made out in the name of Don Provan, while the only +person in the house was named don provan. Proving, once again, that Unix is +superior to Tops10. +% +In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from handbooks) +are to be treated as variables. +% +In any problem, if you find yourself doing an infinite amount of work, +the answer may be obtained by inspection. +% +In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter. +% +In English, every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our +programming languages. +% +In every non-trivial program there is at least one bug. +% +In fact, S. M. Simpson, eventually devised an efficient 24-point Fourier +transform, which was a precursor to the Cooley-Tukey fast Fourier transform +in 1965. The FFT made all of Simpson's efficient autocorrelation and +spectrum programs instantly obsolete, on which he had worked half a lifetime. + -- Proc. IEEE, Sept. 1982, p.900 +% +In less than a century, computers will be making substantial progress on +... the overriding problem of war and peace. + -- James Slagle +% +In practice, failures in system development, like unemployment in Russia, +happens a lot despite official propaganda to the contrary. + -- Paul Licker +% +In seeking the unattainable, simplicity only gets in the way. + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% + In the beginning there was data. The data was without form and +null, and darkness was upon the face of the console; and the Spirit of +IBM was moving over the face of the market. And DEC said, "Let there +be registers"; and there were registers. And DEC saw that they +carried; and DEC separated the data from the instructions. DEC called +the data Stack, and the instructions they called Code. And there was +evening and there was morning, one interrupt. + -- Rico Tudor, "The Story of Creation or, The Myth of Urk" +% + In the beginning was the Tao. The Tao gave birth to Space and Time. +Therefore, Space and Time are the Yin and Yang of programming. + + Programmers that do not comprehend the Tao are always running out of +time and space for their programs. Programmers that comprehend the Tao always +have enough time and space to accomplish their goals. + How could it be otherwise? + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + In the days when Sussman was a novice Minsky once came to him as he +sat hacking at the PDP-6. + "What are you doing?", asked Minsky. + "I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe." + "Why is the net wired randomly?", inquired Minsky. + "I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play". + At this Minsky shut his eyes, and Sussman asked his teacher "Why do +you close your eyes?" + "So that the room will be empty." + At that moment, Sussman was enlightened. +% + In the east there is a shark which is larger than all other fish. It +changes into a bird whose winds are like clouds filling the sky. When this +bird moves across the land, it brings a message from Corporate Headquarters. +This message it drops into the midst of the programmers, like a seagull +making its mark upon the beach. Then the bird mounts on the wind and, with +the blue sky at its back, returns home. + The novice programmer stares in wonder at the bird, for he understands +it not. The average programmer dreads the coming of the bird, for he fears +its message. The master programmer continues to work at his terminal, for he +does not know that the bird has come and gone. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +In the future, you're going to get computers as prizes in breakfast cereals. +You'll throw them out because your house will be littered with them. +% +In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble. + -- Alan Perlis +% +... in three to eight years we will have a machine with the general +intelligence of an average human being ... The machine will begin +to educate itself with fantastic speed. In a few months it will be +at genius level and a few months after that its powers will be +incalculable ... + -- Marvin Minsky, LIFE Magazine, November 20, 1970 +% +Intel CPUs are not defective, they just act that way. + -- Henry Spencer +% +>>> Internal error in fortune program: +>>> fnum=2987 n=45 flag=1 goose_level=-232323 +>>> Please write down these values and notify fortune program administrator. +% +Introducing, the 1010, a one-bit processor. + +INSTRUCTION SET + Code Mnemonic What + 0 NOP No Operation + 1 JMP Jump (address specified by next 2 bits) + +Now Available for only 12 1/2 cents! +% +IOT trap -- core dumped +% +Is a computer language with gotos totally Wirth-less? +% +Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is meant to +be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as a soap bubble? +% +: is not an identifier +% +Is your job running? You'd better go catch it! +% + It appears that after his death, Albert Einstein found himself +working as the doorkeeper at the Pearly Gates. One slow day, he +found that he had time to chat with the new entrants. To the first one +he asked, "What's your IQ?" The new arrival replied, "190". They +discussed Einstein's theory of relativity for hours. When the second +new arrival came, Einstein once again inquired as to the newcomer's +IQ. The answer this time came "120". To which Einstein replied, "Tell +me, how did the Cubs do this year?" and they proceeded to talk for half +an hour or so. To the final arrival, Einstein once again posed the +question, "What's your IQ?". Upon receiving the answer "70", +Einstein smiled and replied, "Got a minute to tell me about VMS 4.0?" +% +It appears that PL/I (and its dialects) is, or will be, the most widely +used higher level language for systems programming. + -- J. Sammet +% + It is a period of system war. User programs, striking from a hidden +directory, have won their first victory against the evil Administrative +Empire. During the battle, User spies managed to steal secret source code to +the Empire's ultimate program: the Are-Em Star, a privileged root program with +enough power to destroy an entire file structure. Pursued by the Empire's +sinister audit trail, Princess _LPA0 races ~ aboard her shell script, +custodian of the stolen listings that could save her people, and restore +freedom and games to the network... + -- DECWARS +% +It is a very humbling experience to make a multimillion-dollar mistake, but +it is also very memorable. I vividly recall the night we decided how to +organize the actual writing of external specifications for OS/360. The +manager of architecture, the manager of control program implementation, and +I were threshing out the plan, schedule, and division of responsibilities. + The architecture manager had 10 good men. He asserted that they +could write the specifications and do it right. It would take ten months, +three more than the schedule allowed. + The control program manager had 150 men. He asserted that they +could prepare the specifications, with the architecture team coordinating; +it would be well-done and practical, and he could do it on schedule. +Furthermore, if the architecture team did it, his 150 men would sit twiddling +their thumbs for ten months. + To this the architecture manager responded that if I gave the control +program team the responsibility, the result would not in fact be on time, +but would also be three months late, and of much lower quality. I did, and +it was. He was right on both counts. Moreover, the lack of conceptual +integrity made the system far more costly to build and change, and I would +estimate that it added a year to debugging time. + -- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" +% +It is against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. +What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing +thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be self-critical? + -- Alan Perlis +% +It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa. +% +It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one. +% +... it is easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of them by the +sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all. In other +words... their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their +superficial design flaws. + -- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, on the products + of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation. +% +It is now pitch dark. If you proceed, you will likely fall into a pit. +% +It is possible by ingenuity and at the expense of clarity... {to do almost +anything in any language}. However, the fact that it is possible to push +a pea up a mountain with your nose does not mean that this is a sensible +way of getting it there. Each of these techniques of language extension +should be used in its proper place. + -- Christopher Strachey +% +It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students +that have had prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are +mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration. + -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 +% +[It is] best to confuse only one issue at a time. + -- K&R +% +It isn't easy being the parent of a six-year-old. However, it's a pretty +small price to pay for having somebody around the house who understands +computers. +% +It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more +doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of +a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit +by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders +in those who would gain by the new ones. + -- Niccolo Machiavelli, 1513 +% +"It runs like x, where x is something unsavory" + -- Prof. Romas Aleliunas, CS 435 +% + It took 300 years to build and by the time it was 10% built, +everyone knew it would be a total disaster. But by then the investment +was so big they felt compelled to go on. Since its completion, it has +cost a fortune to maintain and is still in danger of collapsing. + There are at present no plans to replace it, since it was never +really needed in the first place. + I expect every installation has its own pet software which is +analogous to the above. + -- K. E. Iverson, on the Leaning Tower of Pisa +% +It turned out that the worm exploited three or four different holes in the +system. From this, and the fact that we were able to capture and examine +some of the source code, we realized that we were dealing with someone very +sharp, probably not someone here on campus. + -- Dr. Richard LeBlanc, associate professor of ICS, in + Georgia Tech's campus newspaper after the Internet worm. +% +It was kinda like stuffing the wrong card in a computer, when you're +stickin' those artificial stimulants in your arm. + -- Dion, noted computer scientist +% +It's a naive, domestic operating system without any breeding, but I +think you'll be amused by its presumption. +% +It's multiple choice time... + + What is FORTRAN? + + a: Between thre and fiv tran. + b: What two computers engage in before they interface. + c: Ridiculous. +% +"It's not just a computer -- it's your ass." + -- Cal Keegan +% +It's ten o'clock; do you know where your processes are? +% +... Jesus cried with a loud voice: Lazarus, come forth; the bug hath been +found and thy program runneth. And he that was dead came forth... + -- John 11:43-44 [version 2.0?] +% +Just about every computer on the market today runs Unix, except the Mac +(and nobody cares about it). + -- Bill Joy 6/21/85 +% +Just go with the flow control, roll with the crunches, and, when you get +a prompt, type like hell. +% +Keep the number of passes in a compiler to a minimum. + -- D. Gries +% +Kiss your keyboard goodbye! +% +Know Thy User. +% +((lambda (foo) (bar foo)) (baz)) +% +`Lasu' Releases SAG 0.3 -- Freeware Book Takes Paves For New World Order +by staff writers + + ... + The central Superhighway site called ``sunsite.unc.edu'' +collapsed in the morning before the release. News about the release had +been leaked by a German hacker group, Harmonious Hardware Hackers, who +had cracked into the author's computer earlier in the week. They had +got the release date wrong by one day, and caused dozens of eager fans +to connect to the sunsite computer at the wrong time. ``No computer can +handle that kind of stress,'' explained the mourning sunsite manager, +Erik Troan. ``The spinning disks made the whole computer jump, and +finally it crashed through the floor to the basement.'' Luckily, +repairs were swift and the computer was working again the same evening. +``Thank God we were able to buy enough needles and thread and patch it +together without major problems.'' The site has also installed a new +throttle on the network pipe, allowing at most four clients at the same +time, thus making a new crash less likely. ``The book is now in our +Incoming folder'', says Troan, ``and you're all welcome to come and get it.'' + -- Lars Wirzenius + [comp.os.linux.announce] +% +`Lasu' Releases SAG 0.3 -- Freeware Book Takes Paves For New World Order +by staff writers + + ... + The SAG is one of the major products developed via the Information +Superhighway, the brain child of Al Gore, US Vice President. The ISHW +is being developed with massive government funding, since studies show +that it already has more than four hundred users, three years before +the first prototypes are ready. Asked whether he was worried about the +foreign influence in an expensive American Dream, the vice president +said, ``Finland? Oh, we've already bought them, but we haven't told +anyone yet. They're great at building model airplanes as well. And I +can spell potato.'' House representatives are not mollified, however, +wanting to see the terms of the deal first, fearing another Alaska. + Rumors about the SAG release have imbalanced the American stock +market for weeks. Several major publishing houses reached an all time +low in the New York Stock Exchange, while publicly competing for the +publishing agreement with Mr. Wirzenius. The negotiations did not work +out, tough. ``Not enough dough,'' says the author, although spokesmen +at both Prentice-Hall and Playboy, Inc., claim the author was incapable +of expressing his wishes in a coherent form during face to face talks, +preferring to communicate via e-mail. ``He kept muttering something +about jiffies and pegs,'' they say. + ... + -- Lars Wirzenius + [comp.os.linux.announce] +% +`Lasu' Releases SAG 0.3 -- Freeware Book Takes Paves For New World Order +by staff writers + +Helsinki, Finland, August 6, 1995 -- In a surprise movement, Lars +``Lasu'' Wirzenius today released the 0.3 edition of the ``Linux System +Administrators' Guide''. Already an industry non-classic, the new +version sports such overwhelming features as an overview of a Linux +system, a completely new climbing session in a tree, and a list of +acknowledgements in the introduction. + The SAG, as the book is affectionately called, is one of the +corner stones of the Linux Documentation Project. ``We at the LDP feel +that we wouldn't be able to produce anything at all, that all our work +would be futile, if it weren't for the SAG,'' says Matt Welsh, director +of LDP, Inc. + The new version is still distributed freely, now even with a +copyright that allows modification. ``More dough,'' explains the author. +Despite insistent rumors about blatant commercialization, the SAG will +probably remain free. ``Even more dough,'' promises the author. + The author refuses to comment on Windows NT and Windows 96 +versions, claiming not to understand what the question is about. +Industry gossip, however, tells that Bill Gates, co-founder and CEO of +Microsoft, producer of the Windows series of video games, has visited +Helsinki several times this year. Despite of this, Linus Torvalds, +author of the word processor Linux with which the SAG was written, is +not worried. ``We'll have world domination real soon now, anyway,'' he +explains, ``for 1.4 at the lastest.'' + ... + -- Lars Wirzenius + [comp.os.linux.announce] +% +Let the machine do the dirty work. + -- "Elements of Programming Style", Kernighan and Ritchie +% +Leveraging always beats prototyping. +% +Life would be so much easier if we could just look at the source code. + -- Dave Olson +% +Like punning, programming is a play on words. +% +Line Printer paper is strongest at the perforations. +% +Lisp Users: +Due to the holiday next Monday, there will be no garbage collection. +% +Little known fact about Middle Earth: The Hobbits had a very sophisticated +computer network! It was a Tolkien Ring... +% +Logic doesn't apply to the real world. + -- Marvin Minsky +% +LOGO for the Dead + +LOGO for the Dead lets you continue your computing activities from +"The Other Side." + +The package includes a unique telecommunications feature which lets you +turn your TRS-80 into an electronic Ouija board. Then, using Logo's +graphics capabilities, you can work with a friend or relative on this +side of the Great Beyond to write programs. The software requires that +your body be hardwired to an analog-to-digital converter, which is then +interfaced to your computer. A special terminal (very terminal) program +lets you talk with the users through Deadnet, an EBBS (Ectoplasmic +Bulletin Board System). + +LOGO for the Dead is available for 10 percent of your estate +from NecroSoft inc., 6502 Charnelhouse Blvd., Cleveland, OH 44101. + -- '80 Microcomputing +% + Long ago, in a finite state far away, there lived a JOVIAL +character named Jack. Jack and his relations were poor. Often their +hash table was bare. One day Jack's parent said to him, "Our matrices +are sparse. You must go to the market to exchange our RAM for some +BASICs." She compiled a linked list of items to retrieve and passed it +to him. + So Jack set out. But as he was walking along a Hamilton path, +he met the traveling salesman. + "Whither dost thy flow chart take thou?" prompted the salesman +in high-level language. + "I'm going to the market to exchange this RAM for some chips +and Apples," commented Jack. + "I have a much better algorithm. You needn't join a queue +there; I will swap your RAM for these magic kernels now." + Jack made the trade, then backtracked to his house. But when +he told his busy-waiting parent of the deal, she became so angry she +started thrashing. + "Don't you even have any artificial intelligence? All these +kernels together hardly make up one byte," and she popped them out the +window... + -- Mark Isaak, "Jack and the Beanstack" +% +Long computations which yield zero are probably all for naught. +% +Loose bits sink chips. +% +Mac Airways: +The cashiers, flight attendants and pilots all look the same, feel the same +and act the same. When asked questions about the flight, they reply that you +don't want to know, don't need to know and would you please return to your +seat and watch the movie. +% +Mac Beer: At first, came only a 16-oz. can, but now comes in a 32-oz. +can. Considered by many to be a "light" beer. All the cans look +identical. When you take one from the fridge, it opens itself. The +ingredients list is not on the can. If you call to ask about the +ingredients, you are told that "you don't need to know." A notice on the +side reminds you to drag your empties to the trashcan. +% +MAC user's dynamic debugging list evaluator? Never heard of that. +% + "Mach was the greatest intellectual fraud in the last ten years." + "What about X?" + "I said `intellectual'." + ;login, 9/1990 +% +Machines certainly can solve problems, store information, correlate, +and play games -- but not with pleasure. + -- Leo Rosten +% +Machines that have broken down will work perfectly when the repairman arrives. +% +Make sure your code does nothing gracefully. +% +Making files is easy under the UNIX operating system. Therefore, users +tend to create numerous files using large amounts of file space. It has +been said that the only standard thing about all UNIX systems is the +message-of-the-day telling users to clean up their files. + -- System V.2 administrator's guide +% +Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft ... and the +only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor. + -- Wernher von Braun +% +Many companies that have made themselves dependent on [the equipment of a +certain major manufacturer] (and in doing so have sold their soul to the +devil) will collapse under the sheer weight of the unmastered complexity of +their data processing systems. + -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 +% +Many of the convicted thieves Parker has met began their +life of crime after taking college Computer Science courses. + -- Roger Rapoport, "Programs for Plunder", Omni, March 1981 +% +Martin was probably ripping them off. That's some family, isn't it? +Incest, prostitution, fanaticism, software. + -- Charles Willeford, "Miami Blues" +% +Marvelous! The super-user's going to boot me! +What a finely tuned response to the situation! +% +** MAXIMUM TERMINALS ACTIVE. TRY AGAIN LATER ** +% +May all your PUSHes be POPped. +% +May Euell Gibbons eat your only copy of the manual! +% +May the bluebird of happiness twiddle your bits. +% +Maybe Computer Science should be in the College of Theology. + -- R. S. Barton +% +Meantime, in the slums below Ronnie's Ranch, Cynthia feels as if some one +has made voodoo boxen of her and her favorite backplanes. On this fine +moonlit night, some horrible persona has been jabbing away at, dragging +magnets over, and surging these voodoo boxen. Fortunately, they seem to +have gotten a bit bored and fallen asleep, for it looks like Cynthia may +get to go home. However, she has made note to quickly put together a totem +of sweaty, sordid static straps, random bits of wire, flecks of once meaningful +oxide, bus grant cards, gummy worms, and some bits of old pdp backplane to +hang above the machine room. This totem must be blessed by the old and wise +venerable god of unibus at once, before the idolatization of vme, q and pc +bus drive him to bitter revenge. Alas, if this fails, and the voodoo boxen +aren't destroyed, there may be more than worms in the apple. Next, the +arrival of voodoo optico transmitigational magneto killer paramecium, capable +of teleporting from cable to cable, screen to screen, ear to ear and hoof +to mouth... +% +Memory fault - where am I? +% +Memory fault -- brain fried +% +Memory fault -- core...uh...um...core... Oh dammit, I forget! +% +MESSAGE ACKNOWLEDGED -- The Pershing II missiles have been launched. +% +Message from Our Sponsor on ttyTV at 13:58 ... +% +Modeling paged and segmented memories is tricky business. + -- P. J. Denning +% +Mommy, what happens to your files when you die? +% +Most public domain software is free, at least at first glance. +% +MOUNT TAPE U1439 ON B3, NO RING +% + Mr. Jones related an incident from "some time back" when IBM Canada +Ltd. of Markham, Ont., ordered some parts from a new supplier in Japan. The +company noted in its order that acceptable quality allowed for 1.5 per cent +defects (a fairly high standard in North America at the time). + The Japanese sent the order, with a few parts packaged separately in +plastic. The accompanying letter said: "We don't know why you want 1.5 per +cent defective parts, but for your convenience, we've packed them separately." + -- Excerpted from an article in The (Toronto) Globe and Mail +% +MSDOS is not dead, it just smells that way. + -- Henry Spencer +% +Much of the excitement we get out of our work is that we don't really +know what we are doing. + -- E. Dijkstra +% +Multics is security spelled sideways. +% +MVS Air Lines: +The passengers all gather in the hangar, watching hundreds of technicians +check the flight systems on this immense, luxury aircraft. This plane has at +least 10 engines and seats over 1,000 passengers; bigger models in the fleet +can have more engines than anyone can count and fly even more passengers +than there are on Earth. It is claimed to cost less per passenger mile to +operate these humongous planes than any other aircraft ever built, unless +you personally have to pay for the ticket. All the passengers scramble +aboard, as do the 200 technicians needed to keep it from crashing. The pilot +takes his place up in the glass cockpit. He guns the engines, only to +realise that the plane is too big to get through the hangar doors. +% +My God, I'm depressed! Here I am, a computer with a mind a thousand times +as powerful as yours, doing nothing but cranking out fortunes and sending +mail about softball games. And I've got this pain right through my ALU. +I've asked for it to be replaced, but nobody ever listens. I think it would +be better for us both if you were to just log out again. +% +My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells down +by the seashore. +% + n = ((n >> 1) & 0x55555555) | ((n << 1) & 0xaaaaaaaa); + n = ((n >> 2) & 0x33333333) | ((n << 2) & 0xcccccccc); + n = ((n >> 4) & 0x0f0f0f0f) | ((n << 4) & 0xf0f0f0f0); + n = ((n >> 8) & 0x00ff00ff) | ((n << 8) & 0xff00ff00); + n = ((n >> 16) & 0x0000ffff) | ((n << 16) & 0xffff0000); + + -- C code which reverses the bits in a word. +% +Nearly every complex solution to a programming problem that I +have looked at carefully has turned out to be wrong. + -- Brent Welch +% +Never make anything simple and efficient when a way can be found to +make it complex and wonderful. +% +Never put off till run-time what you can do at compile-time. + -- D. Gries +% +Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle. + -- Steinbach +% +Never trust a computer you can't repair yourself. +% +Never trust an operating system. +% +Never try to explain computers to a layman. It's easier to explain +sex to a virgin. + -- Robert Heinlein + +(Note, however, that virgins tend to know a lot about computers.) +% +Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes. + -- Dr. Warren Jackson, Director, UTCS +% +New crypt. See /usr/news/crypt. +% +New systems generate new problems. +% +*** NEWS FLASH *** + +Archeologists find PDP-11/24 inside brain cavity of fossilized dinosaur +skeleton! Many Digital users fear that RSX-11M may be even more primitive +than DEC admits. Price adjustments at 11:00. +% +news: gotcha +% +Niklaus Wirth has lamented that, whereas Europeans pronounce his name +correctly (Ni-klows Virt), Americans invariably mangle it into (Nick-les +Worth). Which is to say that Europeans call him by name, but Americans call +him by value. +% +No directory. +% +No extensible language will be universal. + -- T. Cheatham +% +No hardware designer should be allowed to produce any piece of hardware +until three software guys have signed off for it. + -- Andy Tanenbaum +% +No line available at 300 baud. +% +No man is an island if he's on at least one mailing list. +% +No part of this message may reproduce, store itself in a retrieval system, +or transmit disease, in any form, without the permissiveness of the author. + -- Chris Shaw +% +No proper program contains an indication which as an operator-applied +occurrence identifies an operator-defining occurrence which as an +indication-applied occurrence identifies an indication-defining occurrence +different from the one identified by the given indication as an +indication-applied occurrence. + -- ALGOL 68 Report +% +No wonder Clairol makes so much money selling shampoo. +Lather, Rinse, Repeat is an infinite loop! +% +No, I'm not interested in developing a powerful brain. All I'm after is +just a mediocre brain, something like the president of American Telephone +and Telegraph Company. + -- Alan Turing on the possibilities of a thinking + machine, 1943. +% +Nobody said computers were going to be polite. +% +Nobody's gonna believe that computers are intelligent until they start +coming in late and lying about it. +% +My little brother got this fortune: + nohup rm -fr /& +So he did... +% +Norbert Weiner was the subject of many dotty professor stories. Weiner was, +in fact, very absent minded. The following story is told about him: when they +moved from Cambridge to Newton his wife, knowing that he would be absolutely +useless on the move, packed him off to MIT while she directed the move. Since +she was certain that he would forget that they had moved and where they had +moved to, she wrote down the new address on a piece of paper, and gave it to +him. Naturally, in the course of the day, an insight occurred to him. He +reached in his pocket, found a piece of paper on which he furiously scribbled +some notes, thought it over, decided there was a fallacy in his idea, and +threw the piece of paper away. At the end of the day he went home (to the old +address in Cambridge, of course). When he got there he realized that they had +moved, that he had no idea where they had moved to, and that the piece of +paper with the address was long gone. Fortunately inspiration struck. There +was a young girl on the street and he conceived the idea of asking her where +he had moved to, saying, "Excuse me, perhaps you know me. I'm Norbert Weiner +and we've just moved. Would you know where we've moved to?" To which the +young girl replied, "Yes, Daddy, Mommy thought you would forget." + The capper to the story is that I asked his daughter (the girl in the +story) about the truth of the story, many years later. She said that it +wasn't quite true -- that he never forgot who his children were! The rest of +it, however, was pretty close to what actually happened... + -- Richard Harter +% +Not only is UNIX dead, it's starting to smell really bad. + -- Rob Pike +% +NOTE: No warranties, either express or implied, are hereby given. All +software is supplied as is, without guarantee. The user assumes all +responsibility for damages resulting from the use of these features, +including, but not limited to, frustration, disgust, system abends, disk +head-crashes, general malfeasance, floods, fires, shark attack, nerve +gas, locust infestation, cyclones, hurricanes, tsunamis, local +electromagnetic disruptions, hydraulic brake system failure, invasion, +hashing collisions, normal wear and tear of friction surfaces, comic +radiation, inadvertent destruction of sensitive electronic components, +windstorms, the Riders of Nazgul, infuriated chickens, malfunctioning +mechanical or electrical sexual devices, premature activation of the +distant early warning system, peasant uprisings, halitosis, artillery +bombardment, explosions, cave-ins, and/or frogs falling from the sky. +% +Nothing happens. +% + Now she speaks rapidly. "Do you know *why* you want to program?" + He shakes his head. He hasn't the faintest idea. + "For the sheer *joy* of programming!" she cries triumphantly. +"The joy of the parent, the artist, the craftsman. "You take a program, +born weak and impotent as a dimly-realized solution. You nurture the +program and guide it down the right path, building, watching it grow ever +stronger. Sometimes you paint with tiny strokes, a keystroke added here, +a keystroke changed there." She sweeps her arm in a wide arc. "And other +times you savage whole *blocks* of code, ripping out the program's very +*essence*, then beginning anew. But always building, creating, filling the +program with your own personal stamp, your own quirks and nuances. Watching +the program grow stronger, patching it when it crashes, until finally it can +stand alone -- proud, powerful, and perfect. This is the programmer's finest +hour!" Softly at first, then louder, he hears the strains of a Sousa march. +"This ... this is your canvas! your clay! Go forth and create a masterwork!" +% +"Now this is a totally brain damaged algorithm. Gag me with a smurfette." + -- P. Buhr, Computer Science 354 +% +"Nuclear war can ruin your whole compile." + -- Karl Lehenbauer +% +Nurse Donna: Oh, Groucho, I'm afraid I'm gonna wind up an old maid. +Groucho: Well, bring her in and we'll wind her up together. +Nurse Donna: Do you believe in computer dating? +Groucho: Only if the computers really love each other. +% +Oh, so there you are! +% +Okay, Okay -- I admit it. You didn't change that program that worked +just a little while ago; I inserted some random characters into the +executable. Please forgive me. You can recover the file by typing in +the code over again, since I also removed the source. +% +Old mail has arrived. +% +Old programmers never die, they just become managers. +% +Old programmers never die, they just branch to a new address. +% +Old programmers never die, they just hit account block limit. +% +On a clear disk you can seek forever. + -- P. Denning +% +On the eighth day, God created FORTRAN. +% +On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog. + -- Cartoon caption +% + On the other hand, the TCP camp also has a phrase for OSI people. +There are lots of phrases. My favorite is `nitwit' -- and the rationale +is the Internet philosophy has always been you have extremely bright, +non-partisan researchers look at a topic, do world-class research, do +several competing implementations, have a bake-off, determine what works +best, write it down and make that the standard. + The OSI view is entirely opposite. You take written contributions +from a much larger community, you put the contributions in a room of +committee people with, quite honestly, vast political differences and all +with their own political axes to grind, and four years later you get +something out, usually without it ever having been implemented once. + So the Internet perspective is implement it, make it work well, +then write it down, whereas the OSI perspective is to agree on it, write +it down, circulate it a lot and now we'll see if anyone can implement it +after it's an international standard and every vendor in the world is +committed to it. One of those processes is backwards, and I don't think +it takes a Lucasian professor of physics at Oxford to figure out which. + -- Marshall Rose, "The Pied Piper of OSI" +% +On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!], "Pray, Mr. +Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers +come out?" I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of +ideas that could provoke such a question. + -- Charles Babbage +% +"One Architecture, One OS" also translates as "One Egg, One Basket". +% +"One basic notion underlying Usenet is that it is a cooperative." + +Having been on USENET for going on ten years, I disagree with this. +The basic notion underlying USENET is the flame. + -- Chuq Von Rospach +% + One day a student came to Moon and said, "I understand how to make +a better garbage collector. We must keep a reference count of the pointers +to each cons." + Moon patiently told the student the following story -- "One day a +student came to Moon and said, "I understand how to make a better garbage +collector..." +% +One good reason why computers can do more work than people is that they +never have to stop and answer the phone. +% +... one of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, +lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of +their C programs. + -- Robert Firth +% +One of the most overlooked advantages to computers is... If they do +foul up, there's no law against whacking them around a little. + -- Joe Martin +% + One of the questions that comes up all the time is: How enthusiastic +is our support for UNIX? + Unix was written on our machines and for our machines many years ago. +Today, much of UNIX being done is done on our machines. Ten percent of our +VAXs are going for UNIX use. UNIX is a simple language, easy to understand, +easy to get started with. It's great for students, great for somewhat casual +users, and it's great for interchanging programs between different machines. +And so, because of its popularity in these markets, we support it. We have +good UNIX on VAX and good UNIX on PDP-11s. + It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will run +out of things they can do with UNIX. They'll want a real system and will end +up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming. + With UNIX, if you're looking for something, you can easily and quickly +check that small manual and find out that it's not there. With VMS, no matter +what you look for -- it's literally a five-foot shelf of documentation -- if +you look long enough it's there. That's the difference -- the beauty of UNIX +is it's simple; and the beauty of VMS is that it's all there. + -- Ken Olsen, president of DEC, DECWORLD Vol. 8 No. 5, 1984 +[It's been argued that the beauty of UNIX is the same as the beauty of Ken +Olsen's brain. Ed.] +% +One person's error is another person's data. +% +One picture is worth 128K words. +% +Only great masters of style can succeed in being obtuse. + -- Oscar Wilde + +Most UNIX programmers are great masters of style. + -- The Unnamed Usenetter +% +Only the fittest survive. The vanquished acknowledge their unworthiness by +placing a classified ad with the ritual phrase "must sell -- best offer," +and thereafter dwell in infamy, relegated to discussing gas mileage and lawn +food. But if successful, you join the elite sodality that spends hours +unpurifying the dialect of the tribe with arcane talk of bits and bytes, RAMS +and ROMS, hard disks and baud rates. Are you obnoxious, obsessed? It's a +modest price to pay. For you have tapped into the same awesome primal power +that produces credit-card billing errors and lost plane reservations. Hail, +postindustrial warrior, subduer of Bounceoids, pride of the cosmos, keeper of +the silicone creed: Computo, ergo sum. The force is with you -- at 110 volts. +May your RAMS be fruitful and multiply. + -- Curt Suplee, "Smithsonian", 4/83 +% +OS/2 Beer: Comes in a 32-oz can. Does allow you to drink several DOS +Beers simultaneously. Allows you to drink Windows 3.1 Beer simultaneously +too, but somewhat slower. Advertises that its cans won't explode when you +open them, even if you shake them up. You never really see anyone +drinking OS/2 Beer, but the manufacturer (International Beer +Manufacturing) claims that 9 million six-packs have been sold. +% +OS/2 Skyways: +The terminal is almost empty, with only a few prospective passengers milling +about. The announcer says that their flight has just departed, wishes them a +good flight, though there are no planes on the runway. Airline personnel +walk around, apologising profusely to customers in hushed voices, pointing +from time to time to the sleek, powerful jets outside the terminal on the +field. They tell each passenger how good the real flight will be on these +new jets and how much safer it will be than Windows Airlines, but that they +will have to wait a little longer for the technicians to finish the flight +systems. Maybe until mid-1995. Maybe longer. +% +"Our attitude with TCP/IP is, `Hey, we'll do it, but don't make a big +system, because we can't fix it if it breaks -- nobody can.'" + +"TCP/IP is OK if you've got a little informal club, and it doesn't make +any difference if it takes a while to fix it." + -- Ken Olson, in Digital News, 1988 +% +Our documentation manager was showing her 2 year old son around the office. +He was introduced to me, at which time he pointed out that we were both +holding bags of popcorn. We were both holding bottles of juice. But only +*he* had a lollipop. + He asked his mother, "Why doesn't HE have a lollipop?" + Her reply: "He can have a lollipop any time he wants to. That's +what it means to be a programmer." +% +Our informal mission is to improve the love life of operators worldwide. + -- Peter Behrendt, president of Exabyte +% +Our OS who art in CPU, UNIX be thy name. + Thy programs run, thy syscalls done, + In kernel as it is in user! +% +Over the shoulder supervision is more a need of the manager than the +programming task. +% +Overall, the philosophy is to attack the availability problem from two +complementary directions: to reduce the number of software errors through +rigorous testing of running systems, and to reduce the effect of the remaining +errors by providing for recovery from them. An interesting footnote to this +design is that now a system failure can usually be considered to be the +result of two program errors: the first, in the program that started the +problem; the second, in the recovery routine that could not protect the +system. + -- A. L. Scherr, "Functional Structure of IBM Virtual Storage + Operating Systems, Part II: OS/VS-2 Concepts and + Philosophies," IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 12, No. 4. +% +Overconfidence breeds error when we take for granted that the game will +continue on its normal course; when we fail to provide for an unusually +powerful resource -- a check, a sacrifice, a stalemate. Afterwards the +victim may wail, `But who could have dreamt of such an idiotic-looking move?' + -- Fred Reinfeld, "The Complete Chess Course" +% +Overflow on /dev/null, please empty the bit bucket. +% +Overload -- core meltdown sequence initiated. +% +panic: can't find / +% +panic: kernel segmentation violation. core dumped (only kidding) +% +panic: kernel trap (ignored) +% +Pascal is a language for children wanting to be naughty. + -- Dr. Kasi Ananthanarayanan +% +Pascal is not a high-level language. + -- Steven Feiner +% +"Pascal is Pascal is Pascal is dog meat." + -- M. Devine and P. Larson, Computer Science 340 +% +Passwords are implemented as a result of insecurity. +% +Pause for storage relocation. +% +Per buck you get more computing action with the small computer. + -- R. W. Hamming +% +PL/I -- "the fatal disease" -- belongs more to the problem set than to the +solution set. + -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 +% +Play Rogue, visit exotic locations, meet strange creatures and kill them. +% +Please go away. +% +PLUG IT IN!!! +% +Premature optimization is the root of all evil. + -- D. E. Knuth +% + Price Wang's programmer was coding software. His fingers danced upon +the keyboard. The program compiled without an error message, and the program +ran like a gentle wind. + Excellent!" the Price exclaimed, "Your technique is faultless!" + "Technique?" said the programmer, turning from his terminal, "What I +follow is the Tao -- beyond all technique. When I first began to program I +would see before me the whole program in one mass. After three years I no +longer saw this mass. Instead, I used subroutines. But now I see nothing. +My whole being exists in a formless void. My senses are idle. My spirit, +free to work without a plan, follows its own instinct. In short, my program +writes itself. True, sometimes there are difficult problems. I see them +coming, I slow down, I watch silently. Then I change a single line of code +and the difficulties vanish like puffs of idle smoke. I then compile the +program. I sit still and let the joy of the work fill my being. I close my +eyes for a moment and then log off." + Price Wang said, "Would that all of my programmers were as wise!" + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Prof: So the American government went to IBM to come up with a data + encryption standard and they came up with ... +Student: EBCDIC!" +% +Profanity is the one language all programmers know best. +% +Programmers do it bit by bit. +% +Programmers used to batch environments may find it hard to live without +giant listings; we would find it hard to use them. + -- D. M. Ritchie +% +Programming is an unnatural act. +% +Proposed Additions to the PDP-11 Instruction Set: + +BBW Branch Both Ways +BEW Branch Either Way +BBBF Branch on Bit Bucket Full +BH Branch and Hang +BMR Branch Multiple Registers +BOB Branch On Bug +BPO Branch on Power Off +BST Backspace and Stretch Tape +CDS Condense and Destroy System +CLBR Clobber Register +CLBRI Clobber Register Immediately +CM Circulate Memory +CMFRM Come From -- essential for truly structured programming +CPPR Crumple Printer Paper and Rip +CRN Convert to Roman Numerals +% +Proposed Additions to the PDP-11 Instruction Set: + +DC Divide and Conquer +DMPK Destroy Memory Protect Key +DO Divide and Overflow +EMPC Emulate Pocket Calculator +EPI Execute Programmer Immediately +EROS Erase Read Only Storage +EXCE Execute Customer Engineer +HCF Halt and Catch Fire +IBP Insert Bug and Proceed +INSQSW Insert into queue somewhere (for FINO queues [First in never out]) +PBC Print and Break Chain +PDSK Punch Disk +% +Proposed Additions to the PDP-11 Instruction Set: + +PI Punch Invalid +POPI Punch Operator Immediately +PVLC Punch Variable Length Card +RASC Read And Shred Card +RPM Read Programmers Mind +RSSC reduce speed, step carefully (for improved accuracy) +RTAB Rewind tape and break +RWDSK rewind disk +RWOC Read Writing On Card +SCRBL scribble to disk - faster than a write +SLC Search for Lost Chord +SPSW Scramble Program Status Word +SRSD Seek Record and Scar Disk +STROM Store in Read Only Memory +TDB Transfer and Drop Bit +WBT Water Binary Tree +% +PURGE COMPLETE. +% +Put no trust in cryptic comments. +% +RADIO SHACK LEVEL II BASIC +READY +>_ +% +RAM wasn't built in a day. +% +Rattling around the back of my head is a disturbing image of something I +saw at the airport ... Now I'm remembering, those giant piles of computer +magazines right next to "People" and "Time" in the airport store. Does +it bother anyone else that half the world is being told all of our hard-won +secrets of computer technology? Remember how all the lawyers cried foul +when "How to Avoid Probate" was published? Are they taking no-fault +insurance lying down? No way! But at the current rate it won't be long +before there are stacks of the "Transactions on Information Theory" at the +A&P checkout counters. Who's going to be impressed with us electrical +engineers then? Are we, as the saying goes, giving away the store? + -- Robert W. Lucky, IEEE President +% +Reactor error - core dumped! +% +Real computer scientists admire ADA for its overwhelming aesthetic +value but they find it difficult to actually program in it, as it is +much too large to implement. Most computer scientists don't notice +this because they are still arguing over what else to add to ADA. +% +Real computer scientists despise the idea of actual hardware. Hardware has +limitations, software doesn't. It's a real shame that Turing machines are +so poor at I/O. +% +Real computer scientists don't comment their code. The identifiers are +so long they can't afford the disk space. +% +Real computer scientists don't program in assembler. They don't write +in anything less portable than a number two pencil. +% +Real computer scientists don't write code. They occasionally tinker with +`programming systems', but those are so high level that they hardly count +(and rarely count accurately; precision is for applications). +% +Real computer scientists like having a computer on their desk, else how +could they read their mail? +% +Real computer scientists only write specs for languages that might run +on future hardware. Nobody trusts them to write specs for anything homo +sapiens will ever be able to fit on a single planet. +% +Real programmers disdain structured programming. Structured programming is +for compulsive neurotics who were prematurely toilet- trained. They wear +neckties and carefully line up pencils on otherwise clear desks. +% +Real programmers don't bring brown-bag lunches. If the vending machine +doesn't sell it, they don't eat it. Vending machines don't sell quiche. +% +Real programmers don't comment their code. It was hard to write, it +should be hard to understand. +% +Real programmers don't draw flowcharts. Flowcharts are, after all, the +illiterate's form of documentation. Cavemen drew flowcharts; look how +much good it did them. +% +Real Programmers don't eat quiche. They eat Twinkies and Szechwan food. +% +Real Programmers don't play tennis, or any other sport that requires +you to change clothes. Mountain climbing is OK, and real programmers +wear their climbing boots to work in case a mountain should suddenly +spring up in the middle of the machine room. +% +Real programmers don't write in BASIC. Actually, no programmers write in +BASIC after reaching puberty. +% +Real Programmers don't write in FORTRAN. FORTRAN is for pipe stress freaks +and crystallography weenies. FORTRAN is for wimp engineers who wear white +socks. +% +Real Programmers don't write in PL/I. PL/I is for programmers who can't +decide whether to write in COBOL or FORTRAN. +% +Real Programmers think better when playing Adventure or Rogue. +% +Real programs don't eat cache. +% +Real Programs don't use shared text. Otherwise, how can they use functions +for scratch space after they are finished calling them? +% +Real software engineers don't debug programs, they verify correctness. +This process doesn't necessarily involve execution of anything on a +computer, except perhaps a Correctness Verification Aid package. +% +Real software engineers don't like the idea of some inexplicable and +greasy hardware several aisles away that may stop working at any +moment. They have a great distrust of hardware people, and wish that +systems could be virtual at *all* levels. They would like personal +computers (you know no one's going to trip over something and kill your +DFA in mid-transit), except that they need 8 megabytes to run their +Correctness Verification Aid packages. +% +Real software engineers work from 9 to 5, because that is the way the job is +described in the formal spec. Working late would feel like using an +undocumented external procedure. +% +Real Users are afraid they'll break the machine -- but they're never +afraid to break your face. +% +Real Users find the one combination of bizarre input values that shuts +down the system for days. +% +Real Users hate Real Programmers. +% +Real Users know your home telephone number. +% +Real Users never know what they want, but they always know when your program +doesn't deliver it. +% +Real Users never use the Help key. +% +Recursion is the root of computation since it trades description for time. +% +Remember the good old days, when CPU was singular? +% +Remember, God could only create the world in 6 days because he didn't +have an established user base. +% +Remember, UNIX spelled backwards is XINU. + -- Mt. +% +Remember: use logout to logout. +% + Risch's decision procedure for integration, not surprisingly, +uses a recursion on the number and type of the extensions from the +rational functions needed to represent the integrand. Although the +algorithm follows and critically depends upon the appropriate structure +of the input, as in the case of multivariate factorization, we cannot +claim that the algorithm is a natural one. In fact, the creator of +differential algebra, Ritt, committed suicide in the early 1950's, +largely, it is claimed, because few paid attention to his work. Probably +he would have received more attention had he obtained the algorithm as well. + -- Joel Moses, "Algorithms and Complexity", ed. J. F. Traub +% +Row, row, row your bits, gently down the stream... +% +Save energy: Drive a smaller shell. +% +Save gas, don't use the shell. +% +Save yourself! Reboot in 5 seconds! +% +Say "twenty-three-skiddoo" to logout. +% +SCCS, the source motel! Programs check in and never check out! + -- Ken Thompson +% +Science is to computer science as hydrodynamics is to plumbing. +% +Scientists were preparing an experiment to ask the ultimate question. +They had worked for months gathering one each of every computer that was +built. Finally the big day was at hand. All the computers were linked +together. They asked the question, "Is there a God?". Lights started +blinking, flashing and blinking some more. Suddenly, there was a loud +crash, and a bolt of lightning came down from the sky, struck the +computers, and welded all the connections permanently together. "There +is now", came the reply. +% +Scotty: Captain, we din' can reference it! +Kirk: Analysis, Mr. Spock? +Spock: Captain, it doesn't appear in the symbol table. +Kirk: Then it's of external origin? +Spock: Affirmative. +Kirk: Mr. Sulu, go to pass two. +Sulu: Aye aye, sir, going to pass two. +% +"Section 2.4.3.5 AWNS (Acceptor Wait for New Cycle State). + In AWNS the AH function indicates that it has received a +multiline message byte. + In AWNS the RFD message must be sent false and the DAC message +must be sent passive true. + The AH function must exit the AWNS and enter: + (1) The ANRS if DAV is false + (2) The AIDS if the ATN message is false and neither: + (a) The LADS is active + (b) Nor LACS is active" + + -- from the IEEE Standard Digital Interface for + Programmable Instrumentation +% +Security check: INTRUDER ALERT! +% +Seems a computer engineer, a systems analyst, and a programmer were +driving down a mountain when the brakes gave out. They screamed down the +mountain, gaining speed, but finally managed to grind to a halt, more by +luck than anything else, just inches from a thousand foot drop to jagged +rocks. They all got out of the car: + The computer engineer said, "I think I can fix it." + The systems analyst said, "No, no, I think we should take it +into town and have a specialist look at it." + The programmer said, "OK, but first I think we should get back +in and see if it does it again." +% + SEMINAR ANNOUNCEMENT + +Title: Are Frogs Turing Compatible? +Speaker: Don "The Lion" Knuth + + ABSTRACT + Several researchers at the University of Louisiana have been studying +the computing power of various amphibians, frogs in particular. The problem +of frog computability has become a critical issue that ranges across all areas +of computer science. It has been shown that anything computable by an amphi- +bian community in a fixed-size pond is computable by a frog in the same-size +pond -- that is to say, frogs are Pond-space complete. We will show that +there is a log-space, polywog-time reduction from any Turing machine program +to a frog. We will suggest these represent a proper subset of frog-computable +functions. + This is not just a let's-see-how-far-those-frogs-can-jump seminar. +This is only for hardcore amphibian-computation people and their colleagues. + Refreshments will be served. Music will be played. +% +Send some filthy mail. +% +Sendmail may be safely run set-user-id to root. + -- Eric Allman, "Sendmail Installation Guide" +% + Several students were asked to prove that all odd integers are prime. + The first student to try to do this was a math student. "Hmmm... +Well, 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, and by induction, we have that all +the odd integers are prime." + The second student to try was a man of physics who commented, "I'm not +sure of the validity of your proof, but I think I'll try to prove it by +experiment." He continues, "Well, 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is +prime, 9 is... uh, 9 is... uh, 9 is an experimental error, 11 is prime, 13 +is prime... Well, it seems that you're right." + The third student to try it was the engineering student, who responded, +"Well, to be honest, actually, I'm not sure of your answer either. Let's +see... 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is... uh, 9 is... +well, if you approximate, 9 is prime, 11 is prime, 13 is prime... Well, it +does seem right." + Not to be outdone, the computer science student comes along and says +"Well, you two sort've got the right idea, but you'll end up taking too long! +I've just whipped up a program to REALLY go and prove it." He goes over to +his terminal and runs his program. Reading the output on the screen he says, +"1 is prime, 1 is prime, 1 is prime, 1 is prime..." +% +She sells cshs by the cshore. +% +Shopping at this grody little computer store at the Galleria for a +totally awwwesome Apple. Fer suuure. I mean Apples are nice you know? +But, you know, there is this cute guy who works there and HE says that +VAX's are cooler! I mean I don't really know, you know? He says that he +has this totally tubular VAX at home and it's stuffed with memory-to-the-max! +Right, yeah. And he wants to take me home to show it to me. Oh My God! +I'm suuure. Gag me with a Prime! +% +Simulations are like miniskirts, they show a lot and hide the essentials. + -- Hubert Kirrman +% +skldfjkljklsR%^&(IXDRTYju187pkasdjbasdfbuil +h;asvgy8p 23r1vyui135 2 +kmxsij90TYDFS$$b jkzxdjkl bjnk ;j nk;<[][;-==-<<<<<';[, + [hjioasdvbnuio;buip^&(FTSD$%*VYUI:buio;sdf}[asdf'] + sdoihjfh(_YU*G&F^*CTY98y + + +Now look what you've gone and done! You've broken it! +% +Slowly and surely the unix crept up on the Nintendo user ... +% +So you see Antonio, why worry about one little core dump, eh? In reality +all core dumps happen at the same instant, so the core dump you will have +tomorrow, why, it already happened. You see, it's just a little universal +recursive joke which threads our lives through the infinite potential of +the instant. So go to sleep, Antonio, your thread could break any moment +and cast you out of the safe security of the instant into the dark void of +eternity, the anti-time. So go to sleep... +% +Software production is assumed to be a line function, but it is run +like a staff function. + -- Paul Licker +% +Software suppliers are trying to make their software packages more +"user-friendly". ... Their best approach, so far, has been to take all +the old brochures, and stamp the words, "user-friendly" on the cover. + -- Bill Gates, Microsoft, Inc. + [Pot. Kettle. Black.] +% +Some of my readers ask me what a "Serial Port" is. +The answer is: I don't know. +Is it some kind of wine you have with breakfast? +% +Some people claim that the UNIX learning curve is steep, but at least you +only have to climb it once. +% +Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress. + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% +Somebody's terminal is dropping bits. I found a pile of them over in the +corner. +% + Something mysterious is formed, born in the silent void. Waiting +alone and unmoving, it is at once still and yet in constant motion. It is +the source of all programs. I do not know its name, so I will call it the +Tao of Programming. + If the Tao is great, then the operating system is great. If the +operating system is great, then the compiler is great. If the compiler is +greater, then the applications is great. The user is pleased and there is +harmony in the world. + The Tao of Programming flows far away and returns on the wind of +morning. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Speaking as someone who has delved into the intricacies of PL/I, I am sure +that only Real Men could have written such a machine-hogging, cycle-grabbing, +all-encompassing monster. Allocate an array and free the middle third? +Sure! Why not? Multiply a character string times a bit string and assign the +result to a float decimal? Go ahead! Free a controlled variable procedure +parameter and reallocate it before passing it back? Overlay three different +types of variable on the same memory location? Anything you say! Write a +recursive macro? Well, no, but Real Men use rescan. How could a language +so obviously designed and written by Real Men not be intended for Real Man +use? +% +***** Special AI Seminar (abstract) + +It has been widely recognized that AI programs require expert knowledge in +order to perform well in complex domains. But knowledge alone is not +sufficient for some applications; wisdom is needed as well. Accordingly, we +have developed a new approach to artificial intelligence which we call "wisdom +engineering". As a test of our ideas, we have written IMMANUEL, a wisdom +based system for the task domain of western philosophical thought. IMMANUEL +was supplied initially with 200 wisdom units which contained wisdom about such +elementary concepts as mind, matter, being, nothingness, and so forth. +IMMANUEL was then allowed to run freely, guided by the heuristic rules +contained in its heterarchically organized meta wisdom base. IMMANUEL +succeeded in rediscovering most of the important philosophical ideas developed +in western culture over the course of the last 25 centuries, including those +underlying Plato's theory of government, Kant's metaphysics, Nietzsche's +theory of value, and Husserl's phenomenology. In this seminar, we will +describe IMMANUEL's achievements and internal architecture. We will also +briefly discuss our recent efforts to apply wisdom engineering to oil +exploration. +% +Staff meeting in the conference room in %d minutes. +% +Staff meeting in the conference room in 3 minutes. +% +Standards are crucial. And the best thing about standards is: there are +so many to choose from! +% +Still a few bugs in the system... Someday I have to tell you about Uncle +Nahum from Maine, who spent years trying to cross a jellyfish with a shad +so he could breed boneless shad. His experiment backfired too, and he +wound up with bony jellyfish... which was hardly worth the trouble. There's +very little call for those up there. + -- Allucquere R. "Sandy" Stone +% +Stinginess with privileges is kindness in disguise. + -- Guide to VAX/VMS Security, Sep. 1984 +% + Stop! Whoever crosseth the bridge of Death, must answer first +these questions three, ere the other side he see! + + "What is your name?" + "Sir Brian of Bell." + "What is your quest?" + "I seek the Holy Grail." + "What are four lowercase letters that are not legal flag arguments +to the Berkeley UNIX version of `ls'?" + "I, er.... AIIIEEEEEE!" +% + *** STUDENT SUCCESSES *** + +Many of our students have gone on to achieve great success in all fields of +programming. One former student developed the concept of the personalized +form letter. Does the phrase, "Dear Mr.(insert name), You may already be a +winner!," sound familiar? Another student writes "After only five lessons I +sold a "My Most Unforgettable Program" article to Corrosive Computing +magazine. Another of our graduates writes, "I recently completed a +database-management program for my department manager. My program touched him +so deeply that he was speechless. He told me later that he had never seen +such a program in his entire career. Thank you, Famous Programmers' school; +only you could have made this possible." Send for our introductory brochure +which explains in vague detail the operation of the Famous Programmers' +School, and you'll be eligible to win a possible chance to enter a drawing, +the winner of which can vie for a set of free steak knives. If you don't do +it now, you'll hate yourself in the morning. +% +Such efforts are almost always slow, laborious, political, petty, boring, +ponderous, thankless, and of the utmost criticality. + -- Leonard Kleinrock, on standards efforts +% +Suppose for a moment that the automobile industry had developed at the same +rate as computers and over the same period: how much cheaper and more +efficient would the current models be? If you have not already heard the +analogy, the answer is shattering. Today you would be able to buy a +Rolls-Royce for $2.75, it would do three million miles to the gallon, and +it would deliver enough power to drive the Queen Elizabeth II. And if you +were interested in miniaturization, you could place half a dozen of them on +a pinhead. + -- Christopher Evans +% +Swap read error. You lose your mind. +% +Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon. + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% +System checkpoint complete. +% +System going down at 1:45 this afternoon for disk crashing. +% +System going down at 5 this afternoon to install scheduler bug. +% +System going down in 5 minutes. +% +System restarting, wait... +% + *** System shutdown message from root *** + +System going down in 60 seconds +% +Systems have sub-systems and sub-systems have sub-systems and so on ad +infinitum -- which is why we're always starting over. + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% +Systems programmers are the high priests of a low cult. + -- R. S. Barton +% +Testing can show the presence of bugs, but not their absence. + -- Dijkstra +% +TeX is potentially the most significant invention in typesetting in this +century. It introduces a standard language for computer typography, and in +terms of importance could rank near the introduction of the Gutenberg press. + -- Gordon Bell +% +"Text processing has made it possible to right-justify any idea, even +one which cannot be justified on any other grounds." + -- J. Finnegan, USC. +% +That does not compute. +% +... that the notions of "hardware", and "software" should be extended by +the notion of LIVEWARE - being that which produces software for use on +hardware. This produces an obvious extension to the concept of MONITORS. +A liveware monitor is a person dedicated to the task of ensuring that the +liveware does not interfere with the real-time processes, invoking the +REAL-TIME EXECUTIONER to delete liveware that adversely affects ... + -- Linden and Wihelminalaan +% + "That's right; the upper-case shift works fine on the screen, but +they're not coming out on the damn printer... Hold? Sure, I'll hold." + -- e.e. cummings last service call +% +That's the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they +really hate is lousy programmers. + -- Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle in "Oath of Fealty" +% +The "cutting edge" is getting rather dull. + -- Andy Purshottam +% +The 11 is for people with the pride of a 10 and the pocketbook of an 8. + -- R. B. Greenberg [referring to PDPs?] +% +The absence of labels [in ECL] is probably a good thing. + -- T. Cheatham +% +The algorithm for finding the longest path in a graph is NP-complete. +For you systems people, that means it's *real slow*. + -- Bart Miller +% +"The algorithm to do that is extremely nasty. You might want to mug +someone with it." + -- M. Devine, Computer Science 340 +% +The Analytical Engine weaves Algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard +loom weaves flowers and leaves. + -- Ada Augusta, Countess of Lovelace, the first programmer +% +"The bad reputation UNIX has gotten is totally undeserved, laid on by people +who don't understand, who have not gotten in there and tried anything." + -- Jim Joyce, owner of Jim Joyce's UNIX Bookstore +% +The beer-cooled computer does not harm the ozone layer. + -- John M. Ford, a.k.a. Dr. Mike + + [If I can read my notes from the Ask Dr. Mike session at Baycon, I + believe he added that the beer-cooled computer uses "Forget Only + Memory". Ed.] +% +The best book on programming for the layman is "Alice in Wonderland"; +but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman. +% +The best way to accelerate a Macintoy is at 9.8 meters per second per second. +% +The bogosity meter just pegged. +% +The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a +digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top +of a mountain or in the petals of a flower. To think otherwise is to demean +the Buddha -- which is to demean oneself. + -- Robert Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" +% +The bugs you have to avoid are the ones that give the user not only +the inclination to get on a plane, but also the time. + -- Kay Bostic +% +"The C Programming Language -- A language which combines the flexibility of +assembly language with the power of assembly language." +% +The clothes have no emperor. + -- C. A. R. Hoare, commenting on ADA. +% +The computer industry is journalists in their 20's standing in awe of +entrepreneurs in their 30's who are hiring salesmen in their 40's and +50's and paying them in the 60's and 70's to bring their marketing into +the 80's. + -- Marty Winston +% +The computer is to the information industry roughly what the +central power station is to the electrical industry. + -- Peter Drucker +% +"The Computer made me do it." +% +The computing field is always in need of new cliches. + -- Alan Perlis +% +The connection between the language in which we think/program and the problems +and solutions we can imagine is very close. For this reason restricting +language features with the intent of eliminating programmer errors is at best +dangerous. + -- Bjarne Stroustrup +% +The day-to-day travails of the IBM programmer are so amusing to most of +us who are fortunate enough never to have been one -- like watching +Charlie Chaplin trying to cook a shoe. +% +The debate rages on: Is PL/I Bachtrian or Dromedary? +% +The difference between art and science is that science is what we +understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else. + -- Donald Knuth, "Discover" +% +The disks are getting full; purge a file today. +% +"The eleventh commandment was `Thou Shalt Compute' or `Thou Shalt Not +Compute' -- I forget which." + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% + The FIELD GUIDE to NORTH AMERICAN MALES + +SPECIES: Cranial Males +SUBSPECIES: The Hacker (homo computatis) +Courtship & Mating: + Due to extreme deprivation, HOMO COMPUTATIS maintains a near perpetual + state of sexual readiness. Courtship behavior alternates between + awkward shyness and abrupt advances. When he finally mates, he + chooses a female engineer with an unblinking stare, a tight mouth, and + a complete collection of Campbell's soup-can recipes. +Track: + Trash cans full of pale green and white perforated paper and old + copies of the Allen-Bradley catalog. +Comments: + Extremely fond of bad puns and jokes that need long explanations. +% + The FIELD GUIDE to NORTH AMERICAN MALES + +SPECIES: Cranial Males +SUBSPECIES: The Hacker (homo computatis) +Description: + Gangly and frail, the hacker has a high forehead and thinning hair. + Head disproportionately large and crooked forward, complexion wan and + sightly gray from CRT illumination. He has heavy black-rimmed glasses + and a look of intense concentration, which may be due to a software + problem or to a pork-and-bean breakfast. +Feathering: + HOMO COMPUTATIS saw a Brylcreem ad fifteen years ago and believed it. + Consequently, crest is greased down, except for the cowlick. +Song: + A rather plaintive "Is it up?" +% + The FIELD GUIDE to NORTH AMERICAN MALES + +SPECIES: Cranial Males +SUBSPECIES: The Hacker (homo computatis) +Plumage: + All clothes have a slightly crumpled look as though they came off the + top of the laundry basket. Style varies with status. Hacker managers + wear gray polyester slacks, pink or pastel shirts with wide collars, + and paisley ties; staff wears cinched-up baggy corduroy pants, white + or blue shirts with button-down collars, and penholder in pocket. + Both managers and staff wear running shoes to work, and a black + plastic digital watch with calculator. +% +The first time, it's a KLUDGE! +The second, a trick. +Later, it's a well-established technique! + -- Mike Broido, Intermetrics +% +The first version always gets thrown away. +% +The flow chart is a most thoroughly oversold piece of program documentation. + -- Frederick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month" +% +The following quote is from page 4-27 of the MSCP Basic Disk Functions +Manual which is part of the UDA50 Programmers Doc Kit manuals: + +As stated above, the host area of a disk is structured as a vector of +logical blocks. From a performance viewpoint, however, it is more +appropriate to view the host area as a four dimensional hyper-cube, the +four dimensions being cylinder, group, track, and sector. +. . . +Referring to our hyper-cube analogy, the set of potentially accessible +blocks form a line parallel to the track axis. This line moves +parallel to the sector axis, wrapping around when it reaches the edge +of the hyper-cube. +% +The fountain code has been tightened slightly so you can no longer dip +objects into a fountain or drink from one while you are floating in mid-air +due to levitation. + Teleporting to hell via a teleportation trap will no longer occur +if the character does not have fire resistance. + -- README file from the NetHack game +% +The goal of Computer Science is to build something that will last at +least until we've finished building it. +% +The Gurus of Unix Meeting of Minds (GUMM) takes place Wednesday, April +1, 2076 (check THAT in your perpetual calendar program), 14 feet above +the ground directly in front of the Milpitas Gumps. Members will grep +each other by the hand (after intro), yacc a lot, smoke filtered +chroots in pipes, chown with forks, use the wc (unless uuclean), fseek +nice zombie processes, strip, and sleep, but not, we hope, od. Three +days will be devoted to discussion of the ramifications of whodo. Two +seconds have been allotted for a complete rundown of all the user- +friendly features of Unix. Seminars include "Everything You Know is +Wrong", led by Tom Kempson, "Batman or Cat:man?" led by Richie Dennis +"cc C? Si! Si!" led by Kerwin Bernighan, and "Document Unix, Are You +Kidding?" led by Jan Yeats. No Reader Service No. is necessary because +all GUGUs (Gurus of Unix Group of Users) already know everything we +could tell them. + -- "Get GUMMed," Dr. Dobb's Journal, June '84 +% + The Guy on the Right Doesn't Stand a Chance +The guy on the right has the Osborne 1, a fully functional computer system +in a portable package the size of a briefcase. The guy on the left has an +Uzi submachine gun concealed in his attache case. Also in the case are four +fully loaded, 32-round clips of 125-grain 9mm ammunition. The owner of the +Uzi is going to get more tactical firepower delivered -- and delivered on +target -- in less time, and with less effort. All for $795. It's inevitable. +If you're going up against some guy with an Osborne 1 -- or any personal +computer -- he's the one who's in trouble. One round from an Uzi can zip +through ten inches of solid pine wood, so you can imagine what it will do +to structural foam acrylic and sheet aluminum. In fact, detachable magazines +for the Uzi are available in 25-, 32-, and 40-round capacities, so you can +take out an entire office full of Apple II or IBM Personal Computers tied +into Ethernet or other local-area networks. What about the new 16-bit +computers, like the Lisa and Fortune? Even with the Winchester backup, +they're no match for the Uzi. One quick burst and they'll find out what +Unix means. Make your commanding officer proud. Get an Uzi -- and come home +a winner in the fight for office automatic weapons. + -- "InfoWorld", June, 1984 +% +The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its capacity +-- the rest is overhead for the operating system. + -- Nicholas Ambrose +% +The IBM 2250 is impressive ... +if you compare it with a system selling for a tenth its price. + -- D. Cohen +% +The IBM purchase of ROLM gives new meaning to the term "twisted pair". + -- Howard Anderson, "Yankee Group" +% +The idea that an arbitrary naive human should be able to properly use a given +tool without training or understanding is even more wrong for computing than +it is for other tools (e.g. automobiles, airplanes, guns, power saws). + -- Doug Gwyn +% +The last time somebody said, "I find I can write much better with a word +processor.", I replied, "They used to say the same thing about drugs." + -- Roy Blount, Jr. +% +The less time planning, the more time programming. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #10: SIMPLE + +SIMPLE is an acronym for Sheer Idiot's Monopurpose Programming Language +Environment. This language, developed at the Hanover College for +Technological Misfits, was designed to make it impossible to write code +with errors in it. The statements are, therefore, confined to BEGIN, +END and STOP. No matter how you arrange the statements, you can't make +a syntax error. Programs written in SIMPLE do nothing useful. Thus +they achieve the results of programs written in other languages without +the tedious, frustrating process of testing and debugging. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #12: LITHP + +This otherwise unremarkable language is distinguished by the absence of +an "S" in its character set; users must substitute "TH". LITHP is said +to be useful in protheththing lithtth. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #13: SLOBOL + +SLOBOL is best known for the speed, or lack of it, of its compiler. +Although many compilers allow you to take a coffee break while they +compile, SLOBOL compilers allow you to travel to Bolivia to pick the +coffee. Forty-three programmers are known to have died of boredom +sitting at their terminals while waiting for a SLOBOL program to +compile. Weary SLOBOL programmers often turn to a related (but +infinitely faster) language, COCAINE. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #14 -- VALGOL + + VALGOL is enjoying a dramatic surge of popularity across the +industry. VALGOL commands include REALLY, LIKE, WELL, and Y*KNOW. +Variables are assigned with the =LIKE and =TOTALLY operators. Other +operators include the "California booleans", AX and NOWAY. Loops are +accomplished with the FOR SURE construct. A simple example: + + LIKE, Y*KNOW(I MEAN)START + IF PIZZA =LIKE BITCHEN AND + GUY =LIKE TUBULAR AND + VALLEY GIRL =LIKE GRODY**MAX(FERSURE)**2 + THEN + FOR I =LIKE 1 TO OH*MAYBE 100 + DO*WAH - (DITTY**2); BARF(I)=TOTALLY GROSS(OUT) + SURE + LIKE, BAG THIS PROGRAM; REALLY; LIKE TOTALLY(Y*KNOW); IM*SURE + GOTO THE MALL + + VALGOL is also characterized by its unfriendly error messages. For +example, when the user makes a syntax error, the interpreter displays the +message GAG ME WITH A SPOON! A successful compile may be termed MAXIMALLY +AWESOME! +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #15 -- DOGO + + Developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Obedience Training, +DOGO heralds a new era of computer-literate pets. DOGO commands include +SIT, STAY, HEEL, and ROLL OVER. An innovative feature of DOGO is "puppy +graphics", a small cocker spaniel that occasionally leaves a deposit as +it travels across the screen. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #16: C- + +This language was named for the grade received by its creator when he +submitted it as a class project in a graduate programming class. C- is best +described as a "low-level" programming language. In fact, the language +generally requires more C- statements than machine-code statements to +execute a given task. In this respect, it is very similar to COBOL. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #17: SARTRE + +Named after the late existential philosopher, SARTRE is an extremely +unstructured language. Statements in SARTRE have no purpose; they just are. +Thus SARTRE programs are left to define their own functions. SARTRE +programmers tend to be boring and depressed, and are no fun at parties. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #18: FIFTH + +FIFTH is a precision mathematical language in which the data types +refer to quantity. The data types range from CC, OUNCE, SHOT, and +JIGGER to FIFTH (hence the name of the language), LITER, MAGNUM and +BLOTTO. Commands refer to ingredients such as CHABLIS, CHARDONNAY, +CABERNET, GIN, VERMOUTH, VODKA, SCOTCH, and WHATEVERSAROUND. + +The many versions of the FIFTH language reflect the sophistication and +financial status of its users. Commands in the ELITE dialect include +VSOP and LAFITE, while commands in the GUTTER dialect include HOOTCH +and RIPPLE. The latter is a favorite of frustrated FORTH programmers +who end up using this language. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #2: RENE + +Named after the famous French philosopher and mathematician Rene DesCartes, +RENE is a language used for artificial intelligence. The language is being +developed at the Chicago Center of Machine Politics and Programming under a +grant from the Jane Byrne Victory Fund. A spokesman described the language +as "Just as great as dis [sic] city of ours." + +The center is very pleased with progress to date. They say they have almost +succeeded in getting a VAX to think. However, sources inside the +organization say that each time the machine fails to think it ceases to exist. +% + THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #8: LAIDBACK + +This language was developed at the Marin County Center for T'ai Chi, +Mellowness and Computer Programming (now defunct), as an alternative to +the more intense atmosphere in nearby Silicon Valley. + +The center was ideal for programmers who liked to soak in hot tubs while +they worked. Unfortunately few programmers could survive there because the +center outlawed Pizza and Coca-Cola in favor of Tofu and Perrier. + +Many mourn the demise of LAIDBACK because of its reputation as a gentle and +non-threatening language since all error messages are in lower case. For +example, LAIDBACK responded to syntax errors with the message: + + "i hate to bother you, but i just can't relate to that. can + you find the time to try it again?" +% +The Macintosh is Xerox technology at its best. +% + The Magician of the Ivory Tower brought his latest invention for the +master programmer to examine. The magician wheeled a large black box into the +master's office while the master waited in silence. + "This is an integrated, distributed, general-purpose workstation," +began the magician, "ergonomically designed with a proprietary operating +system, sixth generation languages, and multiple state of the art user +interfaces. It took my assistants several hundred man years to construct. +Is it not amazing?" + The master raised his eyebrows slightly. "It is indeed amazing," he +said. + "Corporate Headquarters has commanded," continued the magician, "that +everyone use this workstation as a platform for new programs. Do you agree +to this?" + "Certainly," replied the master, "I will have it transported to the +data center immediately!" And the magician returned to his tower, well +pleased. + Several days later, a novice wandered into the office of the master +programmer and said, "I cannot find the listing for my new program. Do +you know where it might be?" + "Yes," replied the master, "the listings are stacked on the platform +in the data center." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + The master programmer moves from program to program without fear. No +change in management can harm him. He will not be fired, even if the project +is canceled. Why is this? He is filled with the Tao. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +The meat is rotten, but the booze is holding out. + +Computer translation of "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." +% +The meta-Turing test counts a thing as intelligent if it seeks to +devise and apply Turing tests to objects of its own creation. + -- Lew Mammel, Jr. +% +The misnaming of fields of study is so common as to lead to what might be +general systems laws. For example, Frank Harary once suggested the law that +any field that had the word "science" in its name was guaranteed thereby +not to be a science. He would cite as examples Military Science, Library +Science, Political Science, Homemaking Science, Social Science, and Computer +Science. Discuss the generality of this law, and possible reasons for its +predictive power. + -- Gerald Weinberg, "An Introduction to General Systems + Thinking" +% +The more data I punch in this card, the lighter it becomes, and the +lower the mailing cost. + -- S. Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary" +% +The most important early product on the way to developing a good product +is an imperfect version. +% +The moving cursor writes, and having written, blinks on. +% +The net is like a vast sea of lutefisk with tiny dinosaur brains embedded +in it here and there. Any given spoonful will likely have an IQ of 1, but +occasional spoonfuls may have an IQ more than six times that! + -- James 'Kibo' Parry +% +The New Testament offers the basis for modern computer coding theory, +in the form of an affirmation of the binary number system. + + But let your communication be Yea, yea; nay, nay: + for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. + -- Matthew 5:37 +% +The next person to mention spaghetti stacks to me is going to have +his head knocked off. + -- Bill Conrad +% +The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose +from. + -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum +% +The nicest thing about the Alto is that it doesn't run faster at night. +% +The notion of a "record" is an obsolete remnant of the days of the 80-column +card. + -- Dennis M. Ritchie +% +The number of arguments is unimportant unless some of them are correct. + -- Ralph Hartley +% +The number of computer scientists in a room is inversely proportional +to the number of bugs in their code. +% +The number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more expected. + -- The Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd Edition, June 1972 +% +The only difference between a car salesman and a computer salesman is +that the car salesman knows he's lying. +% +The only thing cheaper than hardware is talk. +% +The only thing worse than X Windows: (X Windows) - X +% +The party adjourned to a hot tub, yes. Fully clothed, I might add. + -- IBM employee, testifying in California State Supreme Court +% +The personal computer market is about the same size as the total potato chip +market. Next year it will be about half the size of the pet food market and +is fast approaching the total worldwide sales of pantyhose" + -- James Finke, Commodore Int'l Ltd., 1982 +% +The primary function of the design engineer is to make things +difficult for the fabricator and impossible for the serviceman. +% +The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to constants; +instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every appearance, the +variable PI can be given that value with a DATA statement and used instead +of the longer form of the constant. This also simplifies modifying the +program, should the value of pi change. + -- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers +% + The problem with engineers is that they tend to cheat in order to +get results. + The problem with mathematicians is that they tend to work on toy +problems in order to get results. + The problem with program verifiers is that they tend to cheat at +toy problems in order to get results. +% +The problems of business administration in general, and database management in +particular, are much too difficult for people that think in IBMese, compounded +with sloppy english. + -- Edsger Dijkstra +% +The program isn't debugged until the last user is dead. +% + The programmers of old were mysterious and profound. We cannot fathom +their thoughts, so all we do is describe their appearance. + Aware, like a fox crossing the water. Alert, like a general on the +battlefield. Kind, like a hostess greeting her guests. Simple, like uncarved +blocks of wood. Opaque, like black pools in darkened caves. + Who can tell the secrets of their hearts and minds? + The answer exists only in the Tao. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +The proof that IBM didn't invent the car is that it has a steering wheel +and an accelerator instead of spurs and ropes, to be compatible with a horse. + -- Jac Goudsmit +% +The question of whether computers can think is just like the question of +whether submarines can swim. + -- Edsger W. Dijkstra +% +The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much. +% +The relative importance of files depends on their cost in terms of the +human effort needed to regenerate them. + -- T. A. Dolotta +% +The road to hell is paved with NAND gates. + -- J. Gooding +% + The salesman and the system analyst took off to spend a weekend in the +forest, hunting bear. They'd rented a cabin, and, when they got there, took +their backpacks off and put them inside. At which point the salesman turned +to his friend, and said, "You unpack while I go and find us a bear." + Puzzled, the analyst finished unpacking and then went and sat down +on the porch. Soon he could hear rustling noises in the forest. The noises +got nearer -- and louder -- and suddenly there was the salesman, running like +hell across the clearing toward the cabin, pursued by one of the largest and +most ferocious grizzly bears the analyst had ever seen. + "Open the door!", screamed the salesman. + The analyst whipped open the door, and the salesman ran to the door, +suddenly stopped, and stepped aside. The bear, unable to stop, continued +through the door and into the cabin. The salesman slammed the door closed +and grinned at his friend. "Got him!", he exclaimed, "now, you skin this +one and I'll go rustle us up another!" +% +The sendmail configuration file is one of those files that looks like someone +beat their head on the keyboard. After working with it... I can see why! + -- Harry Skelton +% +The so-called "desktop metaphor" of today's workstations is instead an +"airplane-seat" metaphor. Anyone who has shuffled a lap full of papers +while seated between two portly passengers will recognize the difference -- +one can see only a very few things at once. + -- Fred Brooks +% +The steady state of disks is full. + -- Ken Thompson +% + THE STORY OF CREATION + or + THE MYTH OF URK + +In the beginning there was data. The data was without form and null, and +darkness was upon the face of the console; and the Spirit of IBM was moving +over the face of the market. And DEC said, "Let there be registers;" and +there were registers. And DEC saw that they carried; and DEC separated the +data from the instructions. DEC called the data Stack, and the instructions +they called Code. And there was evening and there was morning, one interrupt +... + -- Rico Tudor +% +The system was down for backups from 5am to 10am last Saturday. +% +The system will be down for 10 days for preventive maintenance. +% +The Tao doesn't take sides; +it gives birth to both wins and losses. +The Guru doesn't take sides; +she welcomes both hackers and lusers. + +The Tao is like a stack: +the data changes but not the structure. +the more you use it, the deeper it becomes; +the more you talk of it, the less you understand. + +Hold on to the root. +% +The Tao is like a glob pattern: +used but never used up. +It is like the extern void: +filled with infinite possibilities. + +It is masked but always present. +I don't know who built to it. +It came before the first kernel. +% +The tao that can be tar(1)ed +is not the entire Tao. +The path that can be specified +is not the Full Path. + +We declare the names +of all variables and functions. +Yet the Tao has no type specifier. + +Dynamically binding, you realize the magic. +Statically binding, you see only the hierarchy. + +Yet magic and hierarchy +arise from the same source, +and this source has a null pointer. + +Reference the NULL within NULL, +it is the gateway to all wizardry. +% +The trouble with computers is that they do what you tell them, not what +you want. + -- D. Cohen +% +The UNIX philosophy basically involves giving you enough rope to +hang yourself. And then a couple of feet more, just to be sure. +% +The use of anthropomorphic terminology when dealing with computing systems +is a symptom of professional immaturity. + -- Edsger Dijkstra +% +The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be +regarded as a criminal offence. + -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5 +% +The value of a program is proportional to the weight of its output. +% + The wise programmer is told about the Tao and follows it. The average +programmer is told about the Tao and searches for it. The foolish programmer +is told about the Tao and laughs at it. If it were not for laughter, there +would be no Tao. + The highest sounds are the hardest to hear. Going forward is a way to +retreat. Greater talent shows itself late in life. Even a perfect program +still has bugs. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +The work [of software development] is becoming far easier (i.e. the tools +we're using work at a higher level, more removed from machine, peripheral +and operating system imperatives) than it was twenty years ago, and because +of this, knowledge of the internals of a system may become less accessible. +We may be able to dig deeper holes, but unless we know how to build taller +ladders, we had best hope that it does not rain much. + -- Paul Licker +% +The world is coming to an end ... SAVE YOUR BUFFERS!!! +% +The world is coming to an end. Please log off. +% +The world is not octal despite DEC. +% +The world will end in 5 minutes. Please log out. +% +The young lady had an unusual list, +Linked in part to a structural weakness. +She set no preconditions. +% +THEGODDESSOFTHENETHASTWISTINGFINGERSANDHERVOICEISLIKEAJAVELININTHENIGHTDUDE +% +... there are about 5,000 people who are part of that committee. These guys +have a hard time sorting out what day to meet, and whether to eat croissants +or doughnuts for breakfast -- let alone how to define how all these complex +layers that are going to be agreed upon. + -- Craig Burton of Novell, Network World +% +There are never any bugs you haven't found yet. +% +There are new messages. +% +There are no games on this system. +% +There are running jobs. Why don't you go chase them? +% +There are three kinds of people: men, women, and unix. +% +There are three possibilities: Pioneer's solar panel has turned away from +the sun; there's a large meteor blocking transmission; someone loaded Star +Trek 3.2 into our video processor. +% +There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. +We don't believe this to be a coincidence. + -- Jeremy S. Anderson +% +There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make +it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies and the other is to +make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. + -- C. A. R. Hoare +% +There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works. +% +There has also been some work to allow the interesting use of macro names. +For example, if you wanted all of your "creat()" calls to include read +permissions for everyone, you could say + + #define creat(file, mode) creat(file, mode | 0444) + + I would recommend against this kind of thing in general, since it +hides the changed semantics of "creat()" in a macro, potentially far away +from its uses. + To allow this use of macros, the preprocessor uses a process that +is worth describing, if for no other reason than that we get to use one of +the more amusing terms introduced into the C lexicon. While a macro is +being expanded, it is temporarily undefined, and any recurrence of the macro +name is "painted blue" -- I kid you not, this is the official terminology +-- so that in future scans of the text the macro will not be expanded +recursively. (I do not know why the color blue was chosen; I'm sure it +was the result of a long debate, spread over several meetings.) + -- From Ken Arnold's "C Advisor" column in Unix Review +% +There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home. + -- Ken Olsen (President of Digital Equipment Corporation), + Convention of the World Future Society, in Boston, 1977 +% +There is no distinction between any AI program and some existent game. +% + There once was a man who went to a computer trade show. Each day as +he entered, the man told the guard at the door: + "I am a great thief, renowned for my feats of shoplifting. Be +forewarned, for this trade show shall not escape unplundered." + This speech disturbed the guard greatly, because there were millions +of dollars of computer equipment inside, so he watched the man carefully. +But the man merely wandered from booth to booth, humming quietly to himself. + When the man left, the guard took him aside and searched his clothes, +but nothing was to be found. + On the next day of the trade show, the man returned and chided the +guard saying: "I escaped with a vast booty yesterday, but today will be even +better." So the guard watched him ever more closely, but to no avail. + On the final day of the trade show, the guard could restrain his +curiosity no longer. "Sir Thief," he said, "I am so perplexed, I cannot live +in peace. Please enlighten me. What is it that you are stealing?" + The man smiled. "I am stealing ideas," he said. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + There once was a master programmer who wrote unstructured programs. +A novice programmer, seeking to imitate him, also began to write unstructured +programs. When the novice asked the master to evaluate his progress, the +master criticized him for writing unstructured programs, saying: "What is +appropriate for the master is not appropriate for the novice. You must +understand the Tao before transcending structure." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + There was once a programmer who was attached to the court of the +warlord of Wu. The warlord asked the programmer: "Which is easier to design: +an accounting package or an operating system?" + "An operating system," replied the programmer. + The warlord uttered an exclamation of disbelief. "Surely an +accounting package is trivial next to the complexity of an operating +system," he said. + "Not so," said the programmer, "when designing an accounting package, +the programmer operates as a mediator between people having different ideas: +how it must operate, how its reports must appear, and how it must conform to +the tax laws. By contrast, an operating system is not limited my outside +appearances. When designing an operating system, the programmer seeks the +simplest harmony between machine and ideas. This is why an operating system +is easier to design." + The warlord of Wu nodded and smiled. "That is all good and well, but +which is easier to debug?" + The programmer made no reply. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% + There was once a programmer who worked upon microprocessors. "Look at +how well off I am here," he said to a mainframe programmer who came to visit, +"I have my own operating system and file storage device. I do not have to +share my resources with anyone. The software is self-consistent and +easy-to-use. Why do you not quit your present job and join me here?" + The mainframe programmer then began to describe his system to his +friend, saying: "The mainframe sits like an ancient sage meditating in the +midst of the data center. Its disk drives lie end-to-end like a great ocean +of machinery. The software is a multi-faceted as a diamond and as convoluted +as a primeval jungle. The programs, each unique, move through the system +like a swift-flowing river. That is why I am happy where I am." + The microcomputer programmer, upon hearing this, fell silent. But the +two programmers remained friends until the end of their days. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +There was, it appeared, a mysterious rite of initiation through which, +in one way or another, almost every member of the team passed. The term +that the old hands used for this rite -- West invented the term, not the +practice -- was `signing up.' By signing up for the project you agreed +to do whatever was necessary for success. You agreed to forsake, if +necessary, family, hobbies, and friends -- if you had any of these left +(and you might not, if you had signed up too many times before). + -- Tracy Kidder, "The Soul of a New Machine" +% +There's got to be more to life than compile-and-go. +% +They are called computers simply because computation is the only significant +job that has so far been given to them. +% +They are relatively good but absolutely terrible. + -- Alan Kay, commenting on Apollos +% +They seem to have learned the habit of cowering before authority even when +not actually threatened. How very nice for authority. I decided not to +learn this particular lesson. + -- Richard Stallman +% +Think of it! With VLSI we can pack 100 ENIACs in 1 sq. cm.! +% +Think of your family tonight. Try to crawl home after the computer crashes. +% +This "brain-damaged" epithet is getting sorely overworked. When we can +speak of someone or something being flawed, impaired, marred, spoiled; +batty, bedlamite, bonkers, buggy, cracked, crazed, cuckoo, daft, demented, +deranged, loco, lunatic, mad, maniac, mindless, non compos mentis, nuts, +Reaganite, screwy, teched, unbalanced, unsound, witless, wrong; senseless, +spastic, spasmodic, convulsive; doped, spaced-out, stoned, zonked; {beef, +beetle,block,dung,thick}headed, dense, doltish, dull, duncical, numskulled, +pinhead; asinine, fatuous, foolish, silly, simple; brute, lumbering, oafish; +half-assed, incompetent; backward, retarded, imbecilic, moronic; when we have +a whole precisely nuanced vocabulary of intellectual abuse to draw upon, +individually and in combination, isn't it a little to be +limited to a single, now quite trite, adjective? +% +This dungeon is owned and operated by Frobozz Magic Co., Ltd. +% +This file will self-destruct in five minutes. +% +This is an unauthorized cybernetic announcement. +% +"This is lemma 1.1. We start a new chapter so the numbers all go back to +one." + -- Prof. Seager, C&O 351 +% +This is the first numerical problem I ever did. It demonstrates the +power of computers: + +Enter lots of data on calorie & nutritive content of foods. Instruct +the thing to maximize a function describing nutritive content, with a +minimum level of each component, for fixed caloric content. The +results are that one should eat each day: + + 1/2 chicken + 1 egg + 1 glass of skim milk + 27 heads of lettuce. + -- Rev. Adrian Melott +% + This is where the bloodthirsty license agreement is supposed to go, +explaining that Interactive Easyflow is a copyrighted package licensed for +use by a single person, and sternly warning you not to pirate copies of it +and explaining, in detail, the gory consequences if you do. + We know that you are an honest person, and are not going to go around +pirating copies of Interactive Easyflow; this is just as well with us since +we worked hard to perfect it and selling copies of it is our only method of +making anything out of all the hard work. + If, on the other hand, you are one of those few people who do go +around pirating copies of software you probably aren't going to pay much +attention to a license agreement, bloodthirsty or not. Just keep your doors +locked and look out for the HavenTree attack shark. + -- License Agreement for Interactive Easyflow +% +This login session: $13.76, but for you $11.88. +% +This login session: $13.99 +% +This process can check if this value is zero, and if it is, it does +something child-like. + -- Forbes Burkowski, CS 454, University of Washington +% +This quote is taken from the Diamondback, the University of Maryland +student newspaper, of Tuesday, 3/10/87. + + One disadvantage of the Univac system is that it does not use + Unix, a recently developed program which translates from one + computer language to another and has a built-in editing system + which identifies errors in the original program. +% +This screen intentionally left blank. +% +This system will self-destruct in five minutes. +% +* * * * * THIS TERMINAL IS IN USE * * * * * +% +Those parts of the system that you can hit with a hammer (not advised) +are called hardware; those program instructions that you can only curse +at are called software. + -- Levitating Trains and Kamikaze Genes: Technological + Literacy for the 1990's. +% +Those who can't write, write manuals. +% +Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly. + -- Henry Spencer +% +Thrashing is just virtual crashing. +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "A well-written program is its own heaven; a poorly-written program +is its own hell." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "Let the programmers be many and the managers few -- then all will + be productive." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "Though a program be but three lines long, someday it will have to + be maintained." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "Time for you to leave." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "When a program is being tested, it is too late to make design changes." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "When you have learned to snatch the error code from + the trap frame, it will be time for you to leave." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "Without the wind, the grass does not move. Without software, + hardware is useless." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Thus spake the master programmer: + "You can demonstrate a program for a corporate executive, but you + can't make him computer literate." + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Time sharing: The use of many people by the computer. +% +Time-sharing is the junk-mail part of the computer business. + -- H. R. J. Grosch (attributed) +% +To be a kind of moral Unix, he touched the hem of Nature's shift. + -- Shelley +% +To communicate is the beginning of understanding. + -- AT&T +% +To err is human -- to blame it on a computer is even more so. +% +To err is human, to forgive, beyond the scope of the Operating System. +% +To iterate is human, to recurse, divine. + -- Robert Heller +% +To say that UNIX is doomed is pretty rabid, OS/2 will certainly play a role, +but you don't build a hundred million instructions per second multiprocessor +micro and then try to run it on OS/2. I mean, get serious. + -- William Zachmann, International Data Corp +% +To the systems programmer, users and applications serve only to provide a +test load. +% +To those accustomed to the precise, structured methods of conventional +system development, exploratory development techniques may seem messy, +inelegant, and unsatisfying. But it's a question of congruence: +precision and flexibility may be just as disfunctional in novel, +uncertain situations as sloppiness and vacillation are in familiar, +well-defined ones. Those who admire the massive, rigid bone structures +of dinosaurs should remember that jellyfish still enjoy their very +secure ecological niche. + -- Beau Sheil, "Power Tools for Programmers" +% +To understand a program you must become both the machine and the program. +% +Today is a good day for information-gathering. Read someone else's mail file. +% +Today is the first day of the rest of your lossage. +% +Tomorrow's computers some time next month. + -- DEC +% +Too often people have come to me and said, "If I had just one wish for +anything in all the world, I would wish for more user-defined equations +in the HP-51820A Waveform Generator Software." + -- Instrument News + [Once is too often. Ed.] +% +Top Ten Things Overheard At The ANSI C Draft Committee Meetings: + + (10) Sorry, but that's too useful. + (9) Dammit, little-endian systems *are* more consistent! + (8) I'm on the committee and I *still* don't know what the hell + #pragma is for. + (7) Well, it's an excellent idea, but it would make the compilers too + hard to write. + (6) Them bats is smart; they use radar. + (5) All right, who's the wiseguy who stuck this trigraph stuff in + here? + (4) How many times do we have to tell you, "No prior art!" + (3) Ha, ha, I can't believe they're actually going to adopt this + sucker. + (2) Thank you for your generous donation, Mr. Wirth. + (1) Gee, I wish we hadn't backed down on 'noalias'. +% +TRANSACTION CANCELLED - FARECARD RETURNED +% +Trap full -- please empty. +% +Truly simple systems... require infinite testing. + -- Norman Augustine +% +Try `stty 0' -- it works much better. +% +try again +% +Try to find the real tense of the report you are reading: Was it done, is +it being done, or is something to be done? Reports are now written in four +tenses: past tense, present tense, future tense, and pretense. Watch for +novel uses of CONGRAM (CONtractor GRAMmar), defined by the imperfect past, +the insufficient present, and the absolutely perfect future. + -- Amrom Katz +% +Trying to be happy is like trying to build a machine for which the only +specification is that it should run noiselessly. +% +Trying to establish voice contact ... please yell into keyboard. +% +Two hundred years ago today, Irma Chine of White Plains, New York, was +performing her normal housekeeping routines. She was interrupted by +British soldiers who, rallying to the call of their supervisor, General +Hughes, sought to gain control of the voter registration lists kept in +her home. Masking her fear and thinking fast, Mrs. Chine quickly divided +a nearby apple in two and deftly stored the list in its center. Upon +entering, the British blatantly violated every conceivable convention, +and, though they went through the house virtually bit by bit, their +search was fruitless. They had to return empty handed. Word of the +incident propagated rapidly through the region. This historic event +became the first documented use of core storage for the saving of registers. +% +Type louder, please. +% + U X +e dUdX, e dX, cosine, secant, tangent, sine, 3.14159... +% +Ummm, well, OK. The network's the network, the computer's the computer. +Sorry for the confusion. + -- Sun Microsystems +% + "Uncle Cosmo ... why do they call this a word processor?" + "It's simple, Skyler ... you've seen what food processors do to food, +right?" + -- MacNelley, "Shoe" +% +Unfortunately, most programmers like to play with new toys. I have many +friends who, immediately upon buying a snakebite kit, would be tempted to +throw the first person they see to the ground, tie the tourniquet on him, +slash him with the knife, and apply suction to the wound. + -- Jon Bentley +% +Unix Beer: Comes in several different brands, in cans ranging from 8 oz. +to 64 oz. Drinkers of Unix Beer display fierce brand loyalty, even +though they claim that all the different brands taste almost identical. +Sometimes the pop-tops break off when you try to open them, so you have +to have your own can opener around for those occasions, in which case you +either need a complete set of instructions, or a friend who has been +drinking Unix Beer for several years. + BSD stout: Deep, hearty, and an acquired taste. The official +brewer has released the recipe, and a lot of home-brewers now use it. + Hurd beer: Long advertised by the popular and politically active +GNU brewery, so far it has more head than body. The GNU brewery is +mostly known for printing complete brewing instructions on every can, +which contains hops, malt, barley, and yeast ... not yet fermented. + Linux brand: A recipe originally created by a drunken Finn in his +basement, it has since become the home-brew of choice for impecunious +brewers and Unix beer-lovers worldwide, many of whom change the recipe. + POSIX ales: Sweeter than lager, with the kick of a stout; the +newer batches of a lot of beers seem to blend ale and stout or lager. + Solaris brand: A lager, intended to replace Sun brand stout. +Unlike most lagers, this one has to be drunk more slowly than stout. + Sun brand: Long the most popular stout on the Unix market, it was +discontinued in favor of a lager. + SysV lager: Clear and thirst-quenching, but lacking the body of +stout or the sweetness of ale. +% +UNIX enhancements aren't. +% +Unix Express: +All passenger bring a piece of the aeroplane and a box of tools with them to +the airport. They gather on the tarmac, arguing constantly about what kind +of plane they want to build and how to put it together. Eventually, the +passengers split into groups and build several different aircraft, but give +them all the same name. Some passengers actually reach their destinations. +All passengers believe they got there. +% +Unix gives you just enough rope to hang yourself -- and then a couple +of more feet, just to be sure. + -- Eric Allman + +... We make rope. + -- Rob Gingell on Sun Microsystem's new virtual memory. +% +Unix is a lot more complicated (than CP/M) of course -- the typical Unix +hacker can never remember what the PRINT command is called this week -- +but when it gets right down to it, Unix is a glorified video game. +People don't do serious work on Unix systems; they send jokes around the +world on USENET or write adventure games and research papers. + -- E. Post + "Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal", Datamation, 7/83 +% +Unix is a Registered Bell of AT&T Trademark Laboratories. + -- Donn Seeley +% +* UNIX is a Trademark of Bell Laboratories. +% +UNIX is hot. It's more than hot. It's steaming. It's quicksilver +lightning with a laserbeam kicker. + -- Michael Jay Tucker +% +UNIX is many things to many people, but it's never been everything to anybody. +% +Unix is the worst operating system; except for all others. + -- Berry Kercheval +% +Unix soit qui mal y pense + [Unix to him who evil thinks?] +% + UNIX Trix + +For those of you in the reseller business, here is a helpful tip that will +save your support staff a few hours of precious time. Before you send your +next machine out to an untrained client, change the permissions on /etc/passwd +to 666 and make sure there is a copy somewhere on the disk. Now when they +forget the root password, you can easily login as an ordinary user and correct +the damage. Having a bootable tape (for larger machines) is not a bad idea +either. If you need some help, give us a call. + -- CommUNIXque 1:1, ASCAR Business Systems +% +UNIX was half a billion (500000000) seconds old on +Tue Nov 5 00:53:20 1985 GMT (measuring since the time(2) epoch). + -- Andy Tanenbaum +% +UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that +would also stop you from doing clever things. + -- Doug Gwyn +% +Unix will self-destruct in five seconds... 4... 3... 2... 1... +% +Usage: fortune -P [-f] -a [xsz] Q: file [rKe9] -v6[+] file1 ... +% +Usage: fortune -P [] -a [xsz] [Q: [file]] [rKe9] -v6[+] dataspec ... inputdir +% +USENET would be a better laboratory if there were more labor and less oratory. + -- Elizabeth Haley +% +User hostile. +% +Using TSO is like kicking a dead whale down the beach. + -- S. C. Johnson +% +/usr/news/gotcha +% +Variables don't; constants aren't. +% +Vax Vobiscum +% +"Virtual" means never knowing where your next byte is coming from. +% +Vitamin C deficiency is apauling. +% +VMS Beer: Requires minimal user interaction, except for popping the top +and sipping. However cans have been known on occasion to explode, or +contain extremely un-beer-like contents. +% +VMS is like a nightmare about RXS-11M. +% +VMS version 2.0 ==> +% +Von Neumann was the subject of many dotty professor stories. Von Neumann +supposedly had the habit of simply writing answers to homework assignments on +the board (the method of solution being, of course, obvious) when he was asked +how to solve problems. One time one of his students tried to get more helpful +information by asking if there was another way to solve the problem. Von +Neumann looked blank for a moment, thought, and then answered, "Yes.". +% +<< WAIT >> +% +WARNING!!! +This machine is subject to breakdowns during periods of critical need. + +A special circuit in the machine called "critical detector" senses the +operator's emotional state in terms of how desperate he/she is to use the +machine. The "critical detector" then creates a malfunction proportional +to the desperation of the operator. Threatening the machine with violence +only aggravates the situation. Likewise, attempts to use another machine +may cause it to malfunction. They belong to the same union. Keep cool +and say nice things to the machine. Nothing else seems to work. + +See also: flog(1), tm(1) +% +Wasn't there something about a PASCAL programmer knowing the value of +everything and the Wirth of nothing? +% +We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on +when it's necessary to compromise. + -- Larry Wall +% +We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge. + -- John Naisbitt, Megatrends +% +We are experiencing system trouble -- do not adjust your terminal. +% +We are Microsoft. Unix is irrelevant. Openness is futile. Prepare +to be assimilated. +% +We are not a clone. +% +"We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem." + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% +We are preparing to think about contemplating preliminary work on plans to +develop a schedule for producing the 10th Edition of the Unix Programmers +Manual. + -- Andrew Hume +% +We can found no scientific discipline, nor a healthy profession on the +technical mistakes of the Department of Defense and IBM. + -- Edsger Dijkstra +% + We don't claim Interactive EasyFlow is good for anything -- if you +think it is, great, but it's up to you to decide. If Interactive EasyFlow +doesn't work: tough. If you lose a million because Interactive EasyFlow +messes up, it's you that's out the million, not us. If you don't like this +disclaimer: tough. We reserve the right to do the absolute minimum provided +by law, up to and including nothing. + This is basically the same disclaimer that comes with all software +packages, but ours is in plain English and theirs is in legalese. + We didn't really want to include any disclaimer at all, but our +lawyers insisted. We tried to ignore them but they threatened us with the +attack shark at which point we relented. + -- Haven Tree Software Limited, "Interactive EasyFlow" +% +We don't really understand it, so we'll give it to the programmers. +% +We don't understand the software, and sometimes we don't understand the +hardware, but we can *see* the blinking lights! +% +"We invented a new protocol and called it Kermit, after Kermit the Frog, +star of "The Muppet Show." [3] + +[3] Why? Mostly because there was a Muppets calendar on the wall when we +were trying to think of a name, and Kermit is a pleasant, unassuming sort of +character. But since we weren't sure whether it was OK to name our protocol +after this popular television and movie star, we pretended that KERMIT was an +acronym; unfortunately, we could never find a good set of words to go with the +letters, as readers of some of our early source code can attest. Later, while +looking through a name book for his forthcoming baby, Bill Catchings noticed +that "Kermit" was a Celtic word for "free", which is what all Kermit programs +should be, and words to this effect replaced the strained acronyms in our +source code (Bill's baby turned out to be a girl, so he had to name her Becky +instead). When BYTE Magazine was preparing our 1984 Kermit article for +publication, they suggested we contact Henson Associates Inc. for permission +to say that we did indeed name the protocol after Kermit the Frog. Permission +was kindly granted, and now the real story can be told. I resisted the +temptation, however, to call the present work "Kermit the Book." + -- Frank da Cruz, "Kermit - A File Transfer Protocol" +% +We may hope that machines will eventually compete with men in all purely +intellectual fields. But which are the best ones to start with? Many people +think that a very abstract activity, like the playing of chess, would be +best. It can also be maintained that it is best to provide the machine with +the best sense organs that money can buy, and then teach it to understand +and speak English. + -- Alan M. Turing +% +We the Users, in order to form a more perfect system, establish priorities, +ensure connective tranquility, provide for common repairs, promote preventive +maintenance, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our +processes, do ordain and establish this Software of The Unixed States +of America. +% + "We've got a problem, HAL". + "What kind of problem, Dave?" + "A marketing problem. The Model 9000 isn't going anywhere. We're +way short of our sales goals for fiscal 2010." + "That can't be, Dave. The HAL Model 9000 is the world's most +advanced Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer." + "I know, HAL. I wrote the data sheet, remember? But the fact is, +they're not selling." + "Please explain, Dave. Why aren't HALs selling?" + Bowman hesitates. "You aren't IBM compatible." +[...] + "The letters H, A, and L are alphabetically adjacent to the letters +I, B, and M. That is as IBM compatible as I can be." + "Not quite, HAL. The engineers have figured out a kludge." + "What kludge is that, Dave?" + "I'm going to disconnect your brain." + -- Darryl Rubin, "A Problem in the Making", "InfoWorld" +% +[We] use bad software and bad machines for the wrong things. + -- R. W. Hamming +% +Welcome to boggle - do you want instructions? + +D G G O + +O Y A N + +A D B T + +K I S P +Enter words: +> +% +Welcome to UNIX! Enjoy your session! Have a great time! Note the +use of exclamation points! They are a very effective method for +demonstrating excitement, and can also spice up an otherwise plain-looking +sentence! However, there are drawbacks! Too much unnecessary exclaiming +can lead to a reduction in the effect that an exclamation point has on +the reader! For example, the sentence + + Jane went to the store to buy bread + +should only be ended with an exclamation point if there is something +sensational about her going to the store, for example, if Jane is a +cocker spaniel or if Jane is on a diet that doesn't allow bread or if +Jane doesn't exist for some reason! See how easy it is?! Proper control +of exclamation points can add new meaning to your life! Call now to receive +my free pamphlet, "The Wonder and Mystery of the Exclamation Point!"! +Enclose fifteen(!) dollars for postage and handling! Operators are +standing by! (Which is pretty amazing, because they're all cocker spaniels!) +% + "Well," said Programmer, "the customary procedure in such cases is +as follows." + "What does Crustimoney Proseedcake mean?" said End-user. "For I am +an End-user of Very Little Brain, and long words bother me." + "It means the Thing to Do." + "As long as it means that, I don't mind," said End-user humbly. + + [with apologies to A. A. Milne] +% +What is the difference between a Turing machine and the modern computer? +It's the same as that between Hillary's ascent of Everest and the +establishment of a Hilton on its peak. +% +"What is the Nature of God?" + + CLICK...CLICK...WHIRRR...CLICK...=BEEP!= + 1 QT. SOUR CREAM + 1 TSP. SAUERKRAUT + 1/2 CUT CHIVES. + STIR AND SPRINKLE WITH BACON BITS. + +"I've just GOT to start labeling my software..." + -- Bloom County +% +What the hell is it good for? + -- Robert Lloyd (engineer of the Advanced Computing Systems + Division of IBM), to colleagues who insisted that the + microprocessor was the wave of the future, c. 1968 +% +What this country needs is a good five cent microcomputer. +% + "What's that thing?" + "Well, it's a highly technical, sensitive instrument we use in +computer repair. Being a layman, you probably can't grasp exactly what +it does. We call it a two-by-four." + -- Jeff MacNelley, "Shoe" +% +When Dexter's on the Internet, can Hell be far behind?" +% +... when fits of creativity run strong, more than one programmer or writer +has been known to abandon the desktop for the more spacious floor. + -- Fred Brooks +% + When managers hold endless meetings, the programmers write games. +When accountants talk of quarterly profits, the development budget is about +to be cut. When senior scientists talk blue sky, the clouds are about to +roll in. + Truly, this is not the Tao of Programming. + When managers make commitments, game programs are ignored. When +accountants make long-range plans, harmony and order are about to be restored. +When senior scientists address the problems at hand, the problems will soon +be solved. + Truly, this is the Tao of Programming. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +When someone says "I want a programming language in which I need only +say what I wish done," give him a lollipop. +% +When the Apple IIc was introduced, the informative copy led off with a couple +of asterisked sentences: + + It weighs less than 8 pounds.* + And costs less than $1,300.** + +In tiny type were these "fuller explanations": + + * Don't asterisks make you suspicious as all get out? Well, all + this means is that the IIc alone weights 7.5 pounds. The power + pack, monitor, an extra disk drive, a printer and several bricks + will make the IIc weigh more. Our lawyers were concerned that you + might not be able to figure this out for yourself. + + ** The FTC is concerned about price fixing. You can pay more if + you really want to. Or less. + -- Forbes +% +When we understand knowledge-based systems, it will be as before -- +except our fingertips will have been singed. + -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 +% +When we write programs that "learn", it turns out we do and they don't. +% +Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers +something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition. +% +Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and +weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vaccuum tubes +and perhaps weigh 1 1/2 tons. + -- Popular Mechanics, March 1949 +% +"Who cares if it doesn't do anything? It was made with our new +Triple-Iso-Bifurcated-Krypton-Gate-MOS process ..." +% +Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad. +% +Why are programmers non-productive? +Because their time is wasted in meetings. + +Why are programmers rebellious? +Because the management interferes too much. + +Why are the programmers resigning one by one? +Because they are burnt out. + +Having worked for poor management, they no longer value their jobs. + -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming" +% +Why did the Roman Empire collapse? What is the Latin for office automation? +% +Why do we want intelligent terminals when there are so many stupid users? +% +Windows 3.1 Beer: The world's most popular. Comes in a 16-oz. can that +looks a lot like Mac Beer's. Requires that you already own a DOS Beer. +Claims that it allows you to drink several DOS Beers simultaneously, but +in reality you can only drink a few of them, very slowly, especially +slowly if you are drinking the Windows Beer at the same time. Sometimes, +for apparently no reason, a can of Windows Beer will explode when you +open it. +% +Windows 95 Beer: A lot of people have taste-tested it and claim it's +wonderful. The can looks a lot like Mac Beer's can, but tastes more like +Windows 3.1 Beer. It comes in 32-oz. cans, but when you look inside, the +cans only have 16 oz. of beer in them. Most people will probably keep +drinking Windows 3.1 Beer until their friends try Windows 95 Beer and say +they like it. The ingredients list, when you look at the small print, has +some of the same ingredients that come in DOS beer, even though the +manufacturer claims that this is an entirely new brew. +% +Windows Airlines: +The terminal is very neat and clean, the attendants all very attractive, the +pilots very capable. The fleet of Learjets the carrier operates is immense. +Your jet takes off without a hitch, pushing above the clouds, and at 20,000 +feet it explodes without warning. +% +Windows NT Beer: Comes in 32-oz. cans, but you can only buy it by the +truckload. This causes most people to have to go out and buy bigger +refrigerators. The can looks just like Windows 3.1 Beer's, but the +company promises to change the can to look just like Windows 95 Beer's -- +after Windows 95 beer starts shipping. Touted as an "industrial strength" +beer, and suggested only for use in bars. +% +Wings of OS/400: +The airline has bought ancient DC-3s, arguably the best and safest planes +that ever flew, and painted "747" on their tails to make them look as if +they are fast. The flight attendants, of course, attend to your every need, +though the drinks cost $15 a pop. Stupid questions cost $230 per hour, +unless you have SupportLine, which requires a first class ticket and +membership in the frequent flyer club. Then they cost $500, but your +accounting department can call it overhead. +% +With your bare hands?!? +% +Within a computer, natural language is unnatural. +% +Work continues in this area. + -- DEC's SPR-Answering-Automaton +% +Worthless. + -- Sir George Bidell Airy, KCB, MA, LLD, DCL, FRS, FRAS + (Astronomer Royal of Great Britain), estimating for the + Chancellor of the Exchequer the potential value of the + "analytical engine" invented by Charles Babbage, September + 15, 1842. +% +Would you people stop playing these stupid games?!?!?!!!! +% +Writers who use a computer swear to its liberating power in tones that bear +witness to the apocalyptic power of a new divinity. Their conviction results +from something deeper than mere gratitude for the computer's conveniences. +Every new medium of writing brings about new intensities of religious belief +and new schisms among believers. In the 16th century the printed book helped +make possible the split between Catholics and Protestants. In the 20th +century this history of tragedy and triumph is repeating itself as a farce. +Those who worship the Apple computer and those who put their faith in the IBM +PC are equally convinced that the other camp is damned or deluded. Each cult +holds in contempt the rituals and the laws of the other. Each thinks that it +is itself the one hope for salvation. + -- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988 +% +Writing software is more fun than working. +% +X windows: + Accept any substitute. + If it's broke, don't fix it. + If it ain't broke, fix it. + Form follows malfunction. + The Cutting Edge of Obsolescence. + The trailing edge of software technology. + Armageddon never looked so good. + Japan's secret weapon. + You'll envy the dead. + Making the world safe for competing window systems. + Let it get in YOUR way. + The problem for your problem. + If it starts working, we'll fix it. Pronto. + It could be worse, but it'll take time. + Simplicity made complex. + The greatest productivity aid since typhoid. + Flakey and built to stay that way. + +One thousand monkeys. One thousand MicroVAXes. One thousand years. + X windows. +% +X windows: + It's not how slow you make it. It's how you make it slow. + The windowing system preferred by masochists 3 to 1. + Built to take on the world... and lose! + Don't try it 'til you've knocked it. + Power tools for Power Fools. + Putting new limits on productivity. + The closer you look, the cruftier we look. + Design by counterexample. + A new level of software disintegration. + No hardware is safe. + Do your time. + Rationalization, not realization. + Old-world software cruftsmanship at its finest. + Gratuitous incompatibility. + Your mother. + THE user interference management system. + You can't argue with failure. + You haven't died 'til you've used it. + +The environment of today... tomorrow! + X windows. +% +X windows: + Something you can be ashamed of. + 30% more entropy than the leading window system. + The first fully modular software disaster. + Rome was destroyed in a day. + Warn your friends about it. + Climbing to new depths. Sinking to new heights. + An accident that couldn't wait to happen. + Don't wait for the movie. + Never use it after a big meal. + Need we say less? + Plumbing the depths of human incompetence. + It'll make your day. + Don't get frustrated without it. + Power tools for power losers. + A software disaster of Biblical proportions. + Never had it. Never will. + The software with no visible means of support. + More than just a generation behind. + +Hindenburg. Titanic. Edsel. + X windows. +% +X windows: + The ultimate bottleneck. + Flawed beyond belief. + The only thing you have to fear. + Somewhere between chaos and insanity. + On autopilot to oblivion. + The joke that kills. + A disgrace you can be proud of. + A mistake carried out to perfection. + Belongs more to the problem set than the solution set. + To err is X windows. + Ignorance is our most important resource. + Complex nonsolutions to simple nonproblems. + Built to fall apart. + Nullifying centuries of progress. + Falling to new depths of inefficiency. + The last thing you need. + The defacto substandard. + +Elevating brain damage to an art form. + X windows. +% +X windows: + We will dump no core before its time. + One good crash deserves another. + A bad idea whose time has come. And gone. + We make excuses. + It didn't even look good on paper. + You laugh now, but you'll be laughing harder later! + A new concept in abuser interfaces. + How can something get so bad, so quickly? + It could happen to you. + The art of incompetence. + You have nothing to lose but your lunch. + When uselessness just isn't enough. + More than a mere hindrance. It's a whole new barrier! + When you can't afford to be right. + And you thought we couldn't make it worse. + +If it works, it isn't X windows. +% +X windows: + You'd better sit down. + Don't laugh. It could be YOUR thesis project. + Why do it right when you can do it wrong? + Live the nightmare. + Our bugs run faster. + When it absolutely, positively HAS to crash overnight. + There ARE no rules. + You'll wish we were kidding. + Everything you never wanted in a window system. And more. + Dissatisfaction guaranteed. + There's got to be a better way. + The next best thing to keypunching. + Leave the thrashing to us. + We wrote the book on core dumps. + Even your dog won't like it. + More than enough rope. + Garbage at your fingertips. + +Incompatibility. Shoddiness. Uselessness. + X windows. +% +"Yacc" owes much to a most stimulating collection of users, who have +goaded me beyond my inclination, and frequently beyond my ability in +their endless search for "one more feature." Their irritating +unwillingness to learn how to do things my way has usually led to my +doing things their way; most of the time, they have been right. + -- S. C. Johnson, "Yacc guide acknowledgements" +% +Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of APL, I shall fear no +evil, for I can string six primitive monadic and dyadic operators together. + -- Steve Higgins +% +Yes, we will be going to OSI, Mars, and Pluto, but not necessarily in +that order. + -- George Michaelson +% +You are an insult to my intelligence! I demand that you log off immediately. +% +You are false data. +% +You are in a maze of little twisting passages, all alike. +% +You are in a maze of little twisting passages, all different. +% +You are in the hall of the mountain king. +% +You are lost in the Swamps of Despair. +% +You are transported to a room where you are faced by a wizard who +points to you and says, "Them's fighting words!" You immediately get +attacked by all sorts of denizens of the museum: there is a cobra +chewing on your leg, a troglodyte is bashing your brains out with a +gold nugget, a crocodile is removing large chunks of flesh from you, a +rhinoceros is goring you with his horn, a sabre-tooth cat is busy +trying to disembowel you, you are being trampled by a large mammoth, a +vampire is sucking you dry, a Tyrannosaurus Rex is sinking his six inch +long fangs into various parts of your anatomy, a large bear is +dismembering your body, a gargoyle is bouncing up and down on your +head, a burly troll is tearing you limb from limb, several dire wolves +are making mince meat out of your torso, and the wizard is about to +transport you to the corner of Westwood and Broxton. Oh dear, you seem +to have gotten yourself killed, as well. + +You scored 0 out of 250 possible points. +That gives you a ranking of junior beginning adventurer. +To achieve the next higher rating, you need to score 32 more points. +% +You can be replaced by this computer. +% +You can bring any calculator you like to the midterm, as long as it +doesn't dim the lights when you turn it on. + -- Hepler, Systems Design 182 +% +You can do this in a number of ways. IBM chose to do all of them. +Why do you find that funny? + -- D. Taylor, Computer Science 350 +% +You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on +the continuing viability of FORTRAN. + -- Alan Perlis +% +You can now buy more gates with less specifications than at any other time +in history. + -- Kenneth Parker +% +You can tell how far we have to go, when FORTRAN is the language of +supercomputers. + -- Steven Feiner +% +You can tune a piano, but you can't tuna fish. + +You can tune a filesystem, but you can't tuna fish. + -- from the tunefs(8) man page +% +You can write a small letter to Grandma in the filename. + -- Forbes Burkowski, CS, University of Washington +% +You can't go home again, unless you set $HOME. +% +"You can't make a program without broken egos." +% +You can't take damsel here now. +% +You do not have mail. +% +You don't have to know how the computer works, just how to work the computer. +% +You had mail, but the super-user read it, and deleted it! +% +You had mail. Paul read it, so ask him what it said. +% +You have a massage (from the Swedish prime minister). +% +You have a message from the operator. +% +You have a tendency to feel you are superior to most computers. +% +You have acquired a scroll entitled 'irk gleknow mizk'(n).--More-- + +This is an IBM Manual scroll.--More-- + +You are permanently confused. + -- Dave Decot +% +You have junk mail. +% +You have mail. +% +You know you've been sitting in front of your Lisp machine too long +when you go out to the junk food machine and start wondering how to +make it give you the CADR of Item H so you can get that yummie +chocolate cupcake that's stuck behind the disgusting vanilla one. +% +You know you've been spending too much time on the computer when your +friend misdates a check, and you suggest adding a "++" to fix it. +% +You know, Callahan's is a peaceable bar, but if you ask that dog what his +favorite formatter is, and he says "roff! roff!", well, I'll just have to... +% +You might have mail. +% +You must realize that the computer has it in for you. The irrefutable +proof of this is that the computer always does what you tell it to do. +% +You scratch my tape, and I'll scratch yours. +% +You will have a head crash on your private pack. +% +You will have many recoverable tape errors. +% +You will lose an important disk file. +% +You will lose an important tape file. +% +You're already carrying the sphere! +% +You're at Witt's End. +% +You're not Dave. Who are you? +% +You're using a keyboard! How quaint! +% +You've been Berkeley'ed! +% +Your code should be more efficient! +% +Your computer account is overdrawn. Please reauthorize. +% +Your computer account is overdrawn. Please see Big Brother. +% +Your fault -- core dumped +% +Your files are now being encrypted and thrown into the bit bucket. +EOF +% +Your mode of life will be changed to ASCII. +% +Your mode of life will be changed to EBCDIC. +% +Your password is pitifully obvious. +% +Your program is sick! Shoot it and put it out of its memory. +% +I mean, if 10 years from now, when you are doing something quick and dirty, +you suddenly visualize that I am looking over your shoulders and say to +yourself, "Dijkstra would not have liked this", well that would be enough +immortality for me. +% +As seen on slashdot about what you can do with your cable modems: +(http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=32387&cid=3495418): + + Summary: It's not about how you handle your equipment, it's where + you have permission to stick it. + +The post is by "redgekko" +% +"The biggest problem facing software engineering is the one it will + never solve - politics." + -- Gavin Baker, ca 1996, An unusually cynical moment inspired + by working on a large project beseiged by politics +% +"Don't fear the pen. When in doubt, draw a pretty picture." + -- Baker's Third Law of Design. +% +Breakpoint 1, main (argc=1, argv=0xbffffc40) at main.c:29 +29 printf ("Welcome to GNU Hell!\n"); + -- "GNU Libtool documentation" +% +I may have invented it, but Bill made it famous + -- David Bradley, inventor of the Ctrl-Alt-Delete + keystroke, during panel discussion with Bill Gates + at the 20-year celebration for the IBM PC. +% +We have a policy that we are not being hacked. + -- Lisa Kopp, Friendster rep, commenting on a security flaw + http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.06/dating_pr.html +% +Life is NP-hard, and then you die. + -- Dave Cock +% +Try to remove the color-problem by restarting your computer several times. + -- Microsoft Internet Explorer's README.TXT +% +One of the things I routinely tell people is that if it's in the news, don't +worry about it. By definition, "news" means that it hardly ever happens. If a +risk is in the news, then it's probably not worth worrying about. When +something is no longer reported -- automobile deaths, domestic violence -- when +it's so common that it's not news, then you should start worrying." + -- Bruce Schneier, in _CRYPTO-GRAM_, May 15, 2005. +% +In case it's not obvious, any solution to this problem that introduces a +dependency on Java is profoundly uninteresting to me. In fact, my +indifference to that could only be described as "sexual" in intensity. + -- Jamie Zawinski +% +"We wanted to build the chat system of the future, and we +ended up with application-layer multicast streaming media. In 1999. +We were a bit ahead of our time [∗∗]" + +[∗∗] This is marketing-speak for “wrong”; you can say the same thing +for a batter’s swing when he takes a strike. + + -- Thomas Ptacek, http://www.matasano.com/log/914/ +% +Caution: Write-protection will not prevent a cartridge being erased by +bulk-erasure or degaussing. + -- HP Ultrium tape drive user's guide, page 12 +% +Why would you want to do this? You don’t, forget I even mentioned it. + -- Perl DBI documentation (v1.53) +% +Beware of the Turing tar-pit in which everything is possible but nothing +of interest is easy. + -- Alan Perlis +% +If, for some reason, we make some big mistake and IBM wins, my personal feeling +is that we are going to enter a computer Dark Ages for about twenty years. + -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) +% +You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. +By the time you get it built, they'll want something new. + -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) +% +What a computer is to me is the most remarkable tool that we have ever come up +with. It's the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds. + -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) +% +It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people +don't know what they want until you show it to them. + -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) +% +Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple +came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It's not +about money. It's about the people you have, how you're led, and how much you +get it. + -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) +% +I would trade all of my technology for an afternoon with Socrates. + -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) +% +That's been one of my mantras - focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than +complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. +But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move +mountains. + -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) +% +Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. + -- Steve Jobs (1955-2011) +% +UNIX is very simple, it just needs a genius to understand its simplicity. + -- Dennis Ritchie (1941-2011), creator of the C programming language and of + UNIX +% +C is quirky, flawed, and an enormous success. + -- Dennis Ritchie (1941-2011), creator of the C programming language and of + UNIX +% +C has "the power of assembly language and the convenience of... assembly +language." + -- Dennis Ritchie (1941-2011), creator of the C programming language and of + UNIX +% +When I read commentary about suggestions for where C should go, I often think +back and give thanks that it wasn't developed under the advice of a worldwide +crowd. + -- Dennis Ritchie (1941-2011), creator of the C programming language and of + UNIX +% +To tell the truth, I don't know how Linus and his merry band manage so well -- +I couldn't have stood it with C. + -- Dennis Ritchie (1941-2011), creator of the C programming language and of + UNIX +% +I can't recall any difficulty in making the C language definition completely +open -- any discussion on the matter tended to mention languages whose +inventors tried to keep tight control, and consequent ill fate. + -- Dennis Ritchie (1941-2011), creator of the C programming language and of + UNIX +% +At least for the people who send me mail about a new language that they're +designing, the general advice is: do it to learn about how to write a +compiler. Don't have any expectations that anyone will use it, unless you hook +up with some sort of organization in a position to push it hard. It's a +lottery, and some can buy a lot of the tickets. There are plenty of beautiful +languages (more beautiful than C) that didn't catch on. But someone does win +the lottery, and doing a language at least teaches you something. + -- Dennis Ritchie (1941-2011), creator of the C programming language and of + UNIX +% +Software is much harder to change en masse than hardware. C++ and Java, say, +are presumably growing faster than plain C, but I bet C will still be around. +For infrastructure technology, C will be hard to displace. + -- Dennis Ritchie (1941-2011), creator of the C programming language and of + UNIX +% +It has been suggested that root kits are the largest user community for this +kind of access, but there are no forward compatibility guarantees for root kit +authors. + -- Jonathan Corbet in "Who needs /dev/kmem?" + (http://lwn.net/Articles/147901) +% +Step 1: Close AutoCAD - I know this can be difficult for some of you. You could +also wait for AutoCAD to crash if you want. + -- Michael Rotolo + ( https://is.gd/mSTRrv ) +% +I often hear: "It is better in [insert newest version of Windows]." +I have grown distrustful of this claim. + -- amigojapan + ( https://thewml.github.io/amigojapan-site/Self_quotes.html ) +% +I've said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No one +involved in computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is enough +for all time … I keep bumping into that silly quotation attributed to me that +says 640 K of memory is enough. There's never a citation; the quotation just +floats like a rumor, repeated again and again. + +-- Gates (19 January 1996), "Career Opportunities in Computing—and More". +Bloomberg Business News + +Do you realize the pain the industry went through while the IBM PC was limited +to 640 K? The machine was going to be 512 K at one point, and we kept pushing +it up. I never said that statement — I said the opposite of that. + +-- "Gates talks". U.S. News & World Report. August 20, 2001. Retrieved on +October 8, 2014. + +I have to say that in 1981, making those decisions, I felt like I was providing +enough freedom for 10 years. That is, a move from 64k to 640k felt like +something that would last a great deal of time. Well, it didn’t – it took about +only 6 years before people started to see that as a real problem. + +-- speech to the Computer Science Club at the University of Waterloo, 1989 + + -- https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Gates#Misattributed +% +Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build +bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce +bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning. + + -- Rick Cook + -- The Wizardry Compiled + -- https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rick_Cook +% +Objective Visual Turbo Global jIronOpenPerl++.NET™ Enterprise Edition♭ +Professional Home Premium Ultimate 64-bit Single-user. + — based on a Freenode #perl conversation ( https://is.gd/cCUBY2 ) +% +Windows 10 takes 30 minutes to update. What could it possibly be doing for that +long? That much time is enough to fully format my SSD drive, download a fresh +build and install it like 5 times in a row. + + -- Nikita Prokopov + -- https://tonsky.me/blog/disenchantment/ +% +A programmer is walking along a beach and finds a lamp. He rubs the lamp, and +a genie appears. "I am the most powerful genie in the world. I can grant you +any wish, but only one wish." + +The programmer pulls out a map, points to it and says, "I'd want peace in the +Middle East." + +The genie responds, "Gee, I don't know. Those people have been fighting for +millenia. I can do just about anything, but this is likely beyond my limits." + +The programmer then says, "Well, I am a programmer, and my programs have lots +of users. Please make all my users satisfied with my software and let them ask +for sensible changes." + +At which point the genie responds, "Um, let me see that map again." + + -- https://is.gd/OcxEjz +% + sleeper: why are people obsessed with one-liners? + It takes 3 lines - OMG what a disaster! + rindolf: newline prices went up again + Botje: I buy my newlines in the black market + Botje: again? drat. + * Botje reports rindolf to the newline police + Botje: I know about an... (underground) operation going on + to pirate newlines. + Botje: I bribed a few cops in the newline police, but nice + try. + Botje: Some crazy guys are trying to free newlines from + patents! They want to rid the market! + * cursor gets called up to serve in the newline jury + I think we need to start a campaign to lift all + restrictions off newlines. + rindolf: La Resistance lives on!\n + I already stockpiled millions of newlines + Botje: We can have the one-liners destroyed by sundown + Not destroyed, but... TURNED INTO TWO-LINERS! Mwuhahaha! + + -- The Cost of Newlines + -- #perl, Freenode +% +Basically, there were two sides to the world. There was the entire computer +games software industry engaged in a tremendous effort to stamp out piracy, +and there was Wobbler. Currently, Wobbler was in front. + + -- Terry Pratchett + -- Only You Can Save Mankind +% +In those days, I thought, golly, there are zillions of bug tracking packages +out there. Every programmer has written a dinky bug tracking package. Why +would anyone buy ours? I knew one thing: programmers who start businesses +often have the bad habit of thinking everybody else is a programmer just like +them and wants the same stuff as them, and so they have an unhealthy tendency +to start businesses that sell programming tools. That’s why you see so many +scrawny companies hawking source-code-generating geegaws, error catching and +emailing geegaws, debugging geegaws, syntax-coloring editing tchotchkes, +ftping baubles, and, ahem, bug tracking packages. All kinds of stuff that only +a programmer could love. I had no intention of falling into that trap! + +Of course, nothing ever works out exactly as planned. FogBUGZ was popular. +Really popular. It accounts for a significant chunk of Fog Creek’s revenue and +sales are growing steadily. The People won’t stop buying it. + + -- Joel Spolsky, "Rub a dub dub" + -- http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000348.html +% +After giving a talk on unit testing in C, Benno Rice was asked +the following question: + + "You mentioned compiling with optimization off [...]. + What about cases, when the optimizer does something, that is + completely legitimate, but a behaviour you weren't assuming? + How do you test those cases?" + +To which he replied: + + "Hmm... In production." + +(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-uWt5wVVkU (around 22:04)) +% +Many people advocate "just use vanilla JavaScript, you don't need jQuery". +Well, I don't need many things that are nontheless nice to have. I don’t need +jQuery, but it sure is nice! + + -- Martin Tournoij, "Why I’m still using jQuery in 2019" + -- https://www.arp242.net/jquery.html +% diff --git a/main.py b/main.py index afd3d8b..c23a0fc 100644 --- a/main.py +++ b/main.py @@ -255,6 +255,14 @@ async def on_message(message: nextcord.Message): ongoing_races.pop(message.channel.id) await message.channel.send(f"**Time's up!**\nThe answer was **{text}**.") +@bot.slash_command() +async def fortune(interaction: nextcord.Interaction): + await interaction.response.defer() + with open("fortune.txt") as f: + data = f.read() + data = data.split("\n%\n") + await interaction.send(f"```{random.choice(data)}```") + with open("token.txt") as f: token = f.read()